


Commander in Chief

by steklir (SilentStars)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (I can't believe that's not a pre-existing tag), 2016 US Presidential Election, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, F/F, Fluff, President!Lexa, Sharing a Bed, Trapped in the White House Presidential Bedsuite, Tropes, White House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-02 06:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8653933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentStars/pseuds/steklir
Summary: Christmas, 2020: United States President Lexa Woods has recently been re-elected for her second term, has three Nobel Peace Prizes under her belt, and a 97% public approval rating. None of this, in any way, prepares her for the pretty girl her sister brings home to the White House for Christmas.





	1. the world in solemn stillness lay

**Author's Note:**

> Because I needed this :-)
> 
> Please don't expect any sort of coherent political realism. Or even vague realism. Or logic. This is mostly an excuse for Lexa to save the world and also be dramatically ridiculous in the presence of Clarke Griffin. 
> 
> Also—Lexa is 100% gay I PROMISE and there are a lot of things happening behind-the-scenes in this fic, so I expect you to be a little confused by some of the dynamics. I'll get there!

**DECEMBER 23 rd, 2020**

 

Lexa Woods is the first female President of the United States of America.

She’s the first to be elected with a landslide thirty-point majority in the popular polls and she’s the first to obtain a 90% or higher approval rating every month that she’s been in office. She’s united most of the desperate members of the Senate and the House, strengthened the Affordable Healthcare Act, overseen hundreds of new human rights bills, brokered peace between several warring nations, reduced greenhouse emissions, and reformed education so that the USA is no longer shamefully low on the international league tables. All within four years.

Lexa Woods has no less than three Nobel Prizes behind her desk in the Oval Office. 

Her adversaries fear her. Her allies adore her. 

For Christ's sake, Lexa Woods is the fucking _Commander in Chief_ of the United States Armed Forces.

And she’s almost brought to her knees one day when she turns around and sees a pretty girl.

(Suddenly all the work she'd put in for those Peace awards seems like nothing compared to the effort she expends to lock her knees together and stay upright.)

It's the night before Christmas Eve, only a few weeks after easily winning her second term in office, and if the pundits and media are to be believed, there should be no better time for Lexa and her government to relax and enjoy their holiday recess. They deserve it; _Lexa_ deserves it, or at least all her staff keep telling her that.

Lexa smiles and nods and shakes hands and gives out non-denominational presents to her aides and their children at the holiday gathering, discusses shows in her Netflix queue she’s excited to catch up on, and ensures her Vice President and one-time mentor actually catches her ride to the airport to see her grandchildren. All while secretly printing out January’s bill drafts and other briefings and ferrying them inside her blazer to the safety of her bedroom.

Indra deserves a break. The White House staff deserves a break. The whole country deserves a break.

Lexa Woods will work so her people _can_ relax.

But of course Anya has to throw a spanner in it all by bringing home this _celestial being_ for the holidays, this heavenly host Lexa already suspects has the power to weaken more than just her knees.

She prays to a god she doesn’t really believe in—but still visits just enough to keep the more religious of her supporters placated—that this beautiful blonde woman at Anya’s side is vapid.

Or has a discordant, nasally voice.

Snores, maybe.

Possesses some unforgiveable sin that will allow her to go back to her beloved desk with some semblance of focus. A personality flaw strong enough to crush this insolent riot surging through her body and mind before it reaches the thumping organ in her chest.

(It’s far too late for the other thumping body parts.)

( _Fuck._ )

“Baby sister,” Anya coos loudly when Lexa pries her fingers off the back of the library sofa and manages to coordinate her legs enough to walk over and to greet her holiday guests at the entrance.

Luckily Anya’s permanently obnoxious nature knocks her out of her stupor a little. Rolling her eyes, Lexa pulls her sister into a hug she knows Anya will hate in retaliation. “Anya. Merry Christmas. Glad you could make it.”

“Did I have a choice?” Anya drawls, squirming out of the embrace and going back to leaning against the doorframe like she owns the place. Anya’s always been able to fit in wherever she goes, even if it’s simply because she possesses a superhuman ability to glower anyone who would say otherwise into instant submission. It’s a trait Lexa often envied when they were children floating helplessly in hurricane after hurricane and it’s one that she’s practiced and practiced until the only person she has left to convince is herself. “My invitation was drafted on official stationary and may well have been an executive order, with all the legalese.”

Honestly, Lexa had no idea Anya was coming until her Chief of Staff informed her two days ago. And she certainly didn’t expect an entourage.

“It was absolutely an executive order. You got me. My entire political career and the millions spent on campaigns have all been so that I could finally order you home without argument.”  Lexa shoots a raised eyebrow to her Chief of Staff, who shrugs away the criminal impersonation charge.

Anya snorts. “Home. That’s one way to describe the fucking White House.”

“Is the twenty-foot Christmas tree not enough? The crackling fireplace? What more do you need—a stocking with your name hand-embroidered across it? Because I can make it happen.”

The standoff crumbles and both sisters laugh, pulling each other in for a genuine hug. “Did you ever think we’d have a Christmas like this?” Anya whispers in awe and Lexa squeezes her arm.

“Thanks for coming, An,” Lexa whispers back, genuine and maybe just a little choked up this time.

Anya rubs her hand up Lexa arm and then steps back. “Of course. I couldn’t let the POTUS spend her holidays alone.” Back to business as usual.

“I’m not alone,” Lexa retorts. The President of the United States is _never_ alone.

“ _To be Commander in Chief is to be alone_ ,” Anya mockingly quotes her, adding air quotes for extra injury.

“Shut up,” Lexa grumbles. She takes a deep breath and shifts her eyes to the other bodies in the room and oh yeah, her lungs remember that they don’t know _how_ to breathe. The seraph at Anya’s side is shifting nervously, her crisply-pressed skirt and blazer in sharp contrast to the way her hand keeps unconsciously rising up to her mouth and then dropping again like she’s trying not to chew on her nails. She’s moving her weight between her legs and no—no, Lexa shouldn’t have moved her eyes down to those two shapely legs. The air refuses to leave Lexa’s chest and surely it must be all the un-released carbon dioxide that’s making her dizzy.

“And you must be…” Lexa tries, holding her hand out and hoping.  Hoping Anya will remind her of her newest girlfriend’s name because she’s probably supposed to know it. Hoping the newest girlfriend won’t understand a single word of English. Hoping she’s secretly a spy for Vladimir Putin.

(Hoping that the President’s face isn’t as slack-jawed as it feels.)

“Ah,” Anya jumps in, wrapping a smug arm around the beautiful blonde woman. “Clarke, you obviously know the President. Lex, this is Clarke Griffin. My girlfriend of—what is it, dear heart, five months now?”

Lexa’s gaze flies to Anya and it looks like Clarke is equally started by a term of endearment coming out of her partner’s mouth. “Um. Sounds about right.” Anya lets her hand drift to her girlfriend’s backside and while Lexa considers whether she’s made a mistake in her weapons disarmament treaties, Clarke only pushes it away and scrunches up her nose. “Don’t be gross, babe.”

Clarke reaches out and shakes Lexa’s limp, dangling hand and maybe there is a god because her hand is shaking, too, leaving Lexa’s tremors less obvious. “Nice to meet you, Madame President. Um, you’re doing a great job with our country.”

“I do my best,” Lexa attempts to drawl.

It’s not as smooth as it went in her head. It’s more of a question. A plea, maybe. Shit. Her hands are so soft. She probably smells like roses. Lexa really likes roses. Maybe roses actually smell like Clarke. God, she’s so beautiful.

Say something, idiot, Lexa commands herself. Nothing about roses.

“You should see our rose gardens while you’re here.”

Shit.

Looking a little confused but no less friendly or beautiful, Clarke nods. “That…sounds nice. Are they open in the winter?”

“They’re always open for the President,” the President lies, reminding herself to ask someone to unlock them, just in case. “Um, and please call me Lexa.”

There’s a long pause after the responding nod, long enough that Lexa has time to compare the blue of Clarke’s eyes to several categories of flora and fauna and come up short. They’re more like the sky. On a sunny day. A sunny day with stars. And roses. She’s so beautiful.

“Oh, and this is Bellamy Blake,” Clarke says when the silence becomes unbearable. “One of my closest friends. Thank you for inviting us both for the holidays.” She looks behind herself as she speaks and, oh. Yeah. There _are_ other people in this room.

Some curly-haired dude she doesn’t know who kind of looks like a floppy puppy dog but less cute.

Lexa hardly knew her _sister_ was coming, much less anyone else, but she manages a gracious nod, shaking his clammy hand and hoping someone’s vetted this guy. His name floats back to her and she stops to consider for a moment. “Bellamy Blake. Your name sounds familiar.”

“Bellamy’s my brother,” Lexa’s Chief of Staff supplies, backing up her claim with a punch to the boy’s arm for emphasis, and Lexa’s willing to be open-minded. But then Bellamy wraps his arm around Clarke, leaving the poor beautiful woman trapped between him and her sister, and Lexa believes in annoyance at first sight.

“That explains it. Welcome to the White House.” Lexa turns to Anya, gesturing to Clarke. “Is Octavia responsible for you two meeting?”

“Only indirectly.” Anya moves her arm up from Clarke’s waist to drape across her shoulder. Lexa decides it’s time to move everyone over to the sofas. “Clarke and I met at a LGBT fundraiser in Boston.” There’s more than a hint of a smirk at the corners of Anya’s mouth as she plops down unceremoniously where Lexa had _clearly_ been sitting and propping her feet up on the pile of binders next on her sister’s reading list. Lexa tries not to pout like her eight-year-old self that Anya’s presence never fails to induce. “Your ex-husband introduced us, actually, Commander.”

Octavia blanches. Lexa glances at Octavia and then blanches. Anya glances at the other people in the room and _then_ blanches. Or bites her lip, the closest Anya’s ever come to blanching.

Clarke and Bellamy look confused at all the blanching.

“Ah. Well.” Lexa recovers first. “Lincoln has a knack for knowing who will…mesh well with whom. It seems he did it again with you two.”

Bellamy’s eyes narrow. “Wait, why would Octavia be indirectly responsible for Lincoln—”

“He’ll be here for a couple of days, actually,” Lexa barrels on, affecting her most presidential tone and knowing no one will dare question her interruption.

Except fucking _Bellamy_.

“Your ex-husband is spending Christmas with you? At the White House?”

“With _us_ ,” Lexa tries not to snap at the shaggy Muppet. “And he’s staying…off-site. I don’t need to tell you that all this is confidential, of course.”

“Of course,” lovely, sweet, beautiful Clarke hastens to jump in, scooting out of her girlfriend’s octopus tentacles and closer to the edge of the couch. “It’s great you’re on good terms. Can’t say the same about my ex-husband,” she jokes without any of the light leaving her soul-wrenching eyes, obviously one of those magnificent people who ramble in order to diffuse tense situations.

 _Interesting_. Anya’s been talking more and more about bisexual discrimination and representation in her campaigns lately; now Lexa thinks she understands why.

“Yes. Lincoln has been a very good friend to me over the years,” Lexa agrees, albeit a little stiffly.

“Let me get this straight. The Prime Minister. Of _Canada._ Is coming to the White House? Just to hang out? Platonically?”

Lexa Woods does not care for Bellamy Blake.

“You have no idea,” Anya mutters, dropping her little smile when everyone looks at her and wrapping her arms around Clarke from behind, hiding a snort in her girlfriend’s hair. Lexa levels her a more serious look and she gets an apologetic shrug back.

There’s not even an _alternate_ universe in which this Christmas visit isn’t going to end in disaster and Lexa shoots Octavia an incredulous head shake. Octavia does look a little worried, Lexa’s somewhat reassured to note.

“And no one thinks this is newsworthy?”

“You signed a non-disclosure release, Bell. Now shut up,” Octavia snaps.

“We’d prefer if the press remained unaware,” Lexa tries to soften Octavia’s harsh rebuke that she can see is only serving to rile up her brother, reminding herself that the President _probably_ shouldn’t put out a kill order on someone just because they’re annoying. Why the fuck is he still standing while everyone else is sitting down? Some sort of inferiority complex, probably. “They tend to read too much into things.”

“Well, yeah,” the Muppet retorts. “I’m sure.” He does, however, lower himself onto the seat next to Clarke and drape his arm around her shoulder. A confusing and very complex five-way set of looks pass between the four women in the room and the imbecile.

“Let’s show you guys to your rooms, shall we?” Octavia thankfully decides, bursting into action and talking into her earpiece to arrange people to carry luggage and alert the other staff that the visitors would be headed up. 

“Thanks again, Ma—Lexa.” Clarke just manages to divert her address into less formal nomenclature as they all stand, swatting away Anya’s grip trying to keep her down on the sofa with her indolent self.

“I’ll escort you,” Lexa finds tumbling out of her mouth.

Suddenly all the silent lurkers in the room are galvanized into action, Lexa’s Secret Service agents muttering into their earpieces that ‘Heda’s on the move. Enroute to the Third Floor.’”

Lexa turns around at that. “You put them on the third floor? The guest suite is empty, Octavia. Why don’t they sleep there?”

Octavia’s eyes widen. “You want them in the State Bedrooms?”

“Oh, god, no, it’s fine,” Clarke starts to stammer. “I’m sure wherever is fine. Really. Fine. It’s the _White House_. Anywhere is fine. An old broom closet. The gardener’s shed. This couch right here is fine.”

Lexa watches her ramble and wishes she hadn’t. God, she’s so beautiful.

Still. There’s hope that she murders kittens for a living.

 _Sister’s_ girlfriend.

Sister’s _girlfriend_.

(Not _genetic_ sister. Surely that counts for something…)

(It does not.)

“You’re welcome to stay on the Third Floor. It’s more casual. It’s _fine_ ,” Lexa says in a tone that comes out just a teeny tiny bit as an _accidental_ flirt, thrilling at the rosy little blush that pops up on Clarke’s cheek and then hating herself for thrilling. “But how often do you get a chance to sleep in the State Rooms of the White House? I don’t think even Anya’s had a chance yet.”

Clarke closes her mouth and nods.

Anya smirks.

Octavia raises her eyebrows.

Bellamy…who cares, Lexa isn’t looking at Bellamy.

“It’s settled, then. Octavia, the Suite is ready I assume?”

“It’s always ready, Commander.”

“Then let’s show our guests how we roll in the West Wing.”

Lexa cringes at herself. She’s pretty sure everyone else cringes, too.

“Cancel Third Floor; Heda is now enroute to the Second Floor via the Grand Stairs,” they immediately hear in update.

“Heda?” Clarke asks curiously as they leave the library and head for the adjacent staircase.

“It’s my code name,” Lexa explains as they climb, concentrating on keeping her face as still as possible so that no one notices that she’s stubbed her toe on the marble stairs for the first time in her four years in office. “I think it’s an acronym but they won’t tell me what it stands for.”

“Executive power only goes so far, hmm?” Clarke laughs. She’s so beautiful when she stretches her lips into a grin. Lexa curses Anya for many, _many_ things.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Clarke.”

“So I’ve heard...” Clarke’s tongue makes a surprise appearance—and Lexa almost falls up the stairs— but then she goes quiet again.

So does Lexa.

So does everyone in the stupid over-ornate stairwell.

What choice does the President of the United States, Chief Diplomat and winner of more than just one Nobel Peace Prize—she wonders if Clarke knows about that. Wonders how she can casually drop it into conversation—have but to continue the conversation with the pretty blonde to her left?

“What do you do, Clarke? Do you live here in D.C.?”

Oh _god_ please be on a week’s leave from a year-long gig on the International Space Station. Or getting ready for that (wo)manned mission to Mars leaving twenty-years ahead of schedule.

“I’m from Boston, actually. I’m in medicine.”

Please be in the evil-doctor branch of medicine. Plastic surgery for war criminals. Code word for drug dealer.  Pharmaceuticals.

“Oh. Cool.” Oh, _cool_? “I like doctors.”

Lexa moves knocking herself off the balcony higher up in her daily agenda.

“In _medicine_ ,” Anya scoffs, somehow missing her sister’s oh-so-gay flailings and touching Clarke’s cheek fondly instead. Lexa examines the floor as they climb. It’s really quite lovely. All grey and…marbled.

“Clarke is the Chief of Pediatrics at the Boston Children’s Hospital,” Bellamy clarifies, a tinge of pride in his voice.

Lexa bites her tongue to hold back a whimper.

“That’s…great,” she manages.

“She just got back from her third stint in Doctors Without Borders, too,” Anya adds. “And before that, she was fixing cleft pallets on babies in Malawi.”

The President of the United States walks into a door.

And there’s no coming back from that.

Because when the President of the United States walks into a door, it means six Secret Service members pull their guns, surrounding her at once and shouting orders and more appear from the cracks and crevices, running down the halls to assess for potential threats. Once the wooden door is subdued, they all circle her, patting her down for injury.

(The Commander in Chief wonders if it’s an actual head injury, this urge she has to close her eyes and hope for medical attention from pretty blue eyes and rose-petal soft hands.)

(It is not.)

\--

It’s just a crush. It’s fine.

Lexa Woods has had crushes before.

It’s _fine_.

\--

It’s not fine.

A small contingent of press arrives to conduct their annual holiday interview an hour or so later, long enough for her guests to get settled into their rooms but not nearly long enough for Lexa to have meditated away her extremely inappropriate attraction to her sister’s girlfriend.

Much less prepare for all the couple’s poses she’s forced to watch the photographers almost wet their pants over for the two of them, half-giddy to arrive for their interview only to discover that the President’s sister is dating again and that even better they’re willing to sit for pictures.

Pictures where Anya’s arms wrap around Clarke in front of the decorated pine tree. Holding hands in front of the fireplace. Intense gazes into each others’ eyes.

Whatever network this is has the scoop of the year and they don’t even mind that Clarke and Anya refuse to say anything for their sound bites. Anya’s long been a popular LGBT advocate at the ACLU and the United Nations, even before Lexa had risen up in political circles, and she’s little less than America’s Lesbian Darling these days.

The press loves it and most of the time Lexa loves it, too, because it allows the President to take a personal interest in LGBT rights without it appearing _too_ personally biased. America’s far more enlightened than it had been even five years ago but there are probably limitations and Lexa’s already pushed so many other lines in her campaign and legislation.

Being single in the White House, for example. Clearly the most controversial.

“It must feel _awfully_ lonely around here sometimes,” the unnaturally-ginger interviewer pretends to sympathize as the cameras and lights attempt to melt away the heavy makeup covering the graze on Lexa’s forehead from her...battles with a door.

Stupid carved-wood panels.

It’s a different woman than the one Lexa likes, the one they’ve sent that past few years, and already she’s had to sit through the most banal set of questions about her favorite song of the year and her opinion on some trendy hairstyle. The few political questions have been poorly veiled attempts for the President to break her long-standing silence on the recent news surrounding a certain melting-waxwork ex-opponent whose face finally broke Lexa of her candle obsession, but she sails right past them with grace, much to the interviewer’s frustration.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone waiting for you at the end of the day?” the harpy harps on. “Little ones running out on the lawn?” The cameras all follow _Debbi_ ’s wistful glance out the window.

A purely decorative window.

Kids playing out that direction would be playing in on a busy street.

Debbi would be a match made in heaven for Bellamy Blake, Lexa decides. She considers having Octavia bring him down here after all, but then remembers the possibility the press will mistake him for her romantic interest and shudders. 

A long political career full of these questions means Lexa’s face remains poised though and her steadying breath is completely imperceptible. It doesn’t mean she’s not seething; where the fuck are the questions she’d prepared for?

“And I’m very grateful for all the school children I get to meet on their visits here and the Capitol building. Here to watch that hard-earned democracy in action,” Lexa hints meaningfully, hoping the woman can read and will move back to the policy-based script. 

“But children of your own,” the foundation-crusted woman presses. “Imagine how they’d flourish, being raised in the center of all that democracy. Your presidency is secure now. You can focus on your legacy.”

Lexa feels her smile congeal and she grits her teeth. “Children are lovely. I’d love to have my own some day,” she recites as she’s recited many times before. It hurts just as much as it always hurts but there’s no room for weakness. “Right now, however—”

“The President’s a little busy right now, don’t you think?” a blonde angel interjects from across the room and Lexa whips her eyes around to find Clarke’s jaw wound as tightly as her own. Her eyes are flashing. “Trying to make a world where _all_ America’s children can flourish.”

The cameras are still on her but Lexa manages to shoot Clarke a small smile and a look of what she hopes conveys her gratitude for the support. Clarke seems to remember where she is and who she just interrupted—on camera— then and nods but a cute little gulp is just about evident in her throat. She leans back against the arm of the sofa with Anya again but Lexa can see her fists remain clenched.

“Of course, Miss Griffin,” the simpering interviewer simpers.

“ _Dr._ Griffin,” Lexa corrects immediately. Clarke grins in response, some of her tension seemingly lessened, and Lexa wants to taste that grin so badly she actually has to dig her fingers into the chair to stop herself getting up and just doing it. It’s unbelievable how attracted she is to this woman; a woman she’s known for all of 76 (glorious) minutes.

Or perhaps incredibly believable, on second thought.  After all, you don’t remain celibate for twenty years without some sort of explosion.

But an explosion that’s exactly what it would be, Lexa forces herself to remember, shutting that mental door and locking the key. She hasn’t spent her whole life fighting and fighting and _fighting_ for the power to actuate real change in broken world around her only to tarnish her inscrutable record and blow holes in her public persona in a moment of weakness. She's been tempted before; she's been tired and alone and empty before and she didn't give in. She's survived it all and she'll survive it again.

Even more so, an entire county in the balance or not, Clarke is dating Lexa’s sister _._ Her _sister_. By blood or by foster system ties, it doesn’t matter. Anya certainly deserves someone as perfect as Clarke.

Even if she’s currently smirking like a Cheshire cat at the scene, leaning back against the couch like she’s the maharaja.

“The public is simply interested in how you’re settling in,” Debbi continues as if they haven’t been interrupted. “If you’ve given any thought to life after the White House. To…dating. You’re still young and attractive—I’m sure you wouldn’t have any difficulty catching yourself a man.”

Lexa laughs.

The President of the fucking United States laughs a loud, uncouth chortle straight from her belly, slapping her hands on her knees and needing to catch her breath before she can respond. 

Over in the corner, the White House press secretary looks terrified.

“I’m exceedingly sorry my private life is so boring,” Lexa finally apologies with what she’s told is her terrifying grin and a shake of her head. She swivels in her chair and looks dead on into one of the cameras. The man behind it gulps and tries to step back. “American public, please forgive your leader for being too lazy to set up a Match.com dating profile and dragging twenty Secret Service agents on awkward first dates.” She turns her gaze back to Bellamy Blake’s soulmate and it becomes more of a glare. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have battles to fight and lives to save.”

(More like intransigent old white guys to fight and budgets to save but Lexa Woods has always possessed a flare for the dramatic.)

She stands and it takes a second for Debbi to blink and then blink again to get the clumps of mascara unstuck. “But Madame President, I have more questions—”

Stepping in front of the camera again and blocking out the insufferable woman, Lexa lets her lips soften into the genuine, beloved smile of hers she knows helped win her both election cycles. “Happy holidays, America. I’ll keep watch while you sleep.” She shakes her finger in front of her face. “So be good, for goodness sake.”

Clapping breaks out from the other side of the room and Lexa turns a tender eye to her holiday visitors and the poor security agents and aides who drew the holiday short straw this year. Maybe it’s not the worst thing to have company this week.

Lexa lowers her chin in thanks and is halfway across the room in her long—and almost certainly dramatic—strides when she hears the nasal voice she’d wished _Clarke_ possessed speak up again.

“Sources say you visited your 2016 running opponent in federal prison last week,” Debbi calls out, desperation reeking out of her pores. “What was that like?”

The cameras are still on the interviewer and are only starting to make their way over to Lexa when she whips around. She allows a genuine and non-politically-correct smirk to spread across her face, the very picture of the cat who caught the heinous yellow-skinned canary.

“No comment,” she says, her face entirely neutral again when the camera finally finds her.

It’s truly fascinating to watch Debbi’s botoxed muscles attempt to twitch into a scowl.

Lexa Woods marches out the door, flanked by agents in black and hurried after by her friends and family. And if she tugs her hair out of its bun and lets it flow behind her back and if her dress swooshes behind her, too, well, there’s got to be _some_ fun in ruling the world.

\--

“Madame President!”

Lexa shoots out of bed in an instant and rolls her eyes when she finds herself instinctively grappling for a knife or a weapon that obviously she doesn’t have under her pillow. Even the _President_ isn’t allowed to own a personal handgun thanks to her new laws.

“Amber-level alert, unknown alarm set off on the third floor. Remain here, we’re activating the security lockdown sequence.”

Lexa sighs. “Is it the toaster again?”

“We have reason to believe it is not, ma’am.”

Lexa groans, long and possibly a little whiny. But it’s 2am. Surely even the President is allowed to be whiny when her sleep is interrupted at 2am. “Fine. At least I stocked up on water bottles after last time,” she grumbles to herself.

The lights blast on and stab them all in the eyeballs. Lexa’s still covering her eyes when the door closes and the electronic lock clicks into place, echoed a moment later in the windows and alternative exits.

When her eyes finally begin to adjust to the light, Lexa has to blink several times at the figure standing in the corner, not sure if she’s dreaming or hallucinating or if there really is a golden-haloed angel keeping watch over her flock this night.

“Um. Hello,” the herald angel doesn’t sing. Kinda mumbles, actually.

Lexa rubs her eyes again and swipes at her mouth. Just in case there’s any drool. “Clarke?”

“Yep. That’s me. Lovely weather we’re having this ass-crack time of night,” the blonde tries to joke.

“Er. What are you..?”

“Oh. Your terrifying agent guys came into my room and dragged me in here. I didn’t really get much of a say in it. They said it was safer, I guess?”

Ah. That makes sense. The Presidential bedroom has the strongest system of security barriers and steel-lined walls in the White House, the entire Secret Service headquarters intentionally located right above it. It’s more panic room than bedroom, really, and isn’t that just apt, Lexa laments, reminding herself that human beings need to breathe.

Wait.

“Why didn’t they bring Anya in, too? And your friend, um…” Lexa knows Bellamy’s name. She just doesn’t want to use it.

Maybe the President is a little childish at 2am, too. Whatever.

Clarke shifts and scratches the back of her neck and all at once, Lexa notices what she’s wearing.

Or what she’s not wearing.

Pants. _Pants._

She _is_ wearing legs though. Legs. Long long legs.

Tugging down her oversized t-shirt, likely when she notices her elected President’s gaping jaw, Clarke bites her lip and looks at her feet. She has the cutest little pink-painted toes. “Oh. Um, I don’t know. Anya wasn’t in bed when they woke me up. She must have been in the bathroom or something.”

“Hmm. They still should have brought her in here. Your other friend, too.”

Clarke shrugs but she doesn’t meet Lexa’s eye. Those cute little toes dig into the carpet and she fidgets with the hem of her t-shirt.

Poor woman, forced out of her bed in the middle of the night and shepherded into a drooling president’s bedroom. Clarke crosses her arms across her chest and oh _god_ , she’s cold, too. The air conditioner gets blasted all through the night in here since Lexa tends to run warm, all the better to enjoy the snuggliness of her feather down quilt, and there’s no way to adjust it now.

(Except that the President of the United States would _never_ use words like ‘snuggliness’)

Trying to pretend visions of two sugar plums with stiff stems on top aren’t dancing through her head, Lexa clears her throat and crosses the room to locate the concealed control panel.   

“Oh my god, that’s amazing,” Clarke laughs as Lexa struggles with the wooden frame before finally just removing it from the wall and setting it on the floor. “You actually have a secret panel behind a painting. Let me guess—the safe’s behind that one?” she asks with a grin, pointing to a large painting of Sojourner Truth.

“The safe’s behind Susan B. Anthony.”

“ _Fuuuck_ —er, sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” Lexa says, distracted by all the required codes and poorly lit instructions on the screen. “I—fucking hell, I don’t know!” she curses at the screen when it asks for her mother’s maiden name. What kind of security system is this, anyway?  Stupid firewalls. Or whatever these are.

Clarke’s laughing again when Lexa slams the cover back over the intercom system and glowers at the technology. “And you’re the one in control of the nuclear code sequences?”

“Clearly I’ll have to avoid world war then, won’t I?” Lexa growls, kicking the wall for good measure. It refuses to bend to her will and she only _just_ manages to pull in her lower lip before Clarke notices her pouting.

“Maybe don’t let any emissaries from enemy nations watch you use a computer,” Clarke suggests with a twinkle in her eye.

“I…” Lexa puffs out a long breath and then a satisfying sigh. “No. No, you’re probably right.”

Clarke grins and Lexa finds herself mirroring it back.

“Well. We’re trapped in here until morning; the doors are on a minimum of four-hour automatic release. They’ll contact us if there’s anything wrong.”

“Um, should we be more worried?”

“Nah. This happens at least once a month. It’s inevitably a broken wire or a smoke detector gone rouge.”

Clarke doesn’t look convinced. She keeps shifting her weight between her feet and crossing and uncrossing her arms.

“In any case, you’re in the safest possible spot in D.C. These walls could probably withstand a missile.”

Pretty blue eyes widen and okay, so maybe that wasn’t the most reassuring thing to say.

“Honestly, I usually go back to sleep,” Lexa tries again, clasping her hands behind her back to stop herself fidgeting. Clarke’s gaze moves to something behind Lexa and the President follows it to the four poster bed taking up almost the entire room.

And then the President takes in the rest of her bedroom.

It’s literally a bed and a desk.

Congress allocates each new president a large budget to refurbish the West Wing to their personal taste. Lexa had immediately reallocated that budget to Education, perfectly content with her good friend Michelle’s decorating style. Her own furnishings from her former home were more than sufficient for her needs.  No one but her is ever in here and even _she_ gets only a few hours a day alone, so it’s not like she needs comfy armchairs or sofas.

She works at the desk. She sleeps on the bed. There isn’t much else to this President’s private life.

(At least it’s a big desk, if that makes any of this less pathetic.)

(It’s a big bed, too. That probably makes it more pathetic.)

“You take the bed,” Lexa finally pulls herself together enough to say, remembering that she swore an oath to the American people and Clarke is one of those and goddamn it, she’s going to make sure she’s looked after. Oh, and Lexa should look out for her sister’s girlfriend. So there’s that. “I was going to be awake soon anyway, there are some urgent, um, briefings to go over,” she lies, indicating toward the desk.

Clarke raises an eyebrow.

“Super urgent.” Lexa’s arms are starting to go numb behind her back, tightly clenched as they are.

“Is it treason if I call the Commander in Chief a big fat liar?” Clarke’s lips are pursed like she’s trying to hold a smirk.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Ah. Well then, I should tell you that I have a health condition where I’m unable to fall asleep when the most popular president in U.S. history is working at her desk at 2am.”

“That’s…that’s not a thing, Clarke.”

Clarke takes a few steps closer. “Are you questioning my medical credentials?”

The President gulps. “No?”

“Come on—your bed is huge and the rings under your eyes are so dark you look half-raccoon. We can both fit.”

Lexa looks at her bed and then back at the blonde angel. She swallows. “Yes. Fine.”

The President’s mind is whirling a million miles an hour, vacillating between whether she should ask Clarke if she wants to borrow some pajama bottoms or whether that would make it super obvious that Lexa’s been thinking about her bare legs or maybe make her think she’s uncomfortable being in bed with her half-naked constituent or whether the sight of Clarke wearing her clothes might be too much for Lexa’s poor little gay disaster of a heart.

“Great.” Clarke takes a couple more steps, this time slower as if she’s trying not to spook a skittish animal. She starts talking, softly but with some purpose Lexa can’t quite discern. “Is this the Abraham Lincoln bed? Or some other really old historic bed?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh god, I bet it _would_ be awkward for you to sleep on a bed your ex-husband was named after. Sorry.”

Lexa internally snorts at the idea of heartache over _Lincoln_. But obviously Clarke doesn’t know those circumstances and Lexa struggles to kill off any smile that tries to rise up her lips.  “I hadn’t thought of that, actually. But the Lincoln bed is in your room. The Lincoln room.”

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Clarke breathes. “I had no idea. Wow. Quite a step up from my IKEA bed.”

“The BCH Chief of Pediatrics shops at IKEA?” Lexa asks, amused.

“Hey, it’s a really nice bed. Why change it up if you’re content?”

“Mmm,” Lexa agrees and startles to realize that at some point during their conversation she’d made it to the bed and gotten under the covers. Clarke’s at the other side, just about to sit, and Lexa glances at the wooden frame with the irrational worry that it’ll crack under the weight of two adults. After all, it’s never known more than just Lexa.

The bed doesn’t even creak.

“I’ve had this bed since my first real apartment, right after grad school,” Lexa admits, not sure why she’s telling Clarke this or why she doesn’t just close her eyes and pray for the sweet unconsciousness of sleep. “The rest of the studio was practically bare because I spent my whole first paycheck on it. But it was worth it.”

Clarke laughs, the prettiest little peal that sounds like an entire choir of angels and archangels. She props her head up on her hand, under the sheets now and facing Lexa. Her hair fans out across the pillow. “It was a good investment piece, obviously.”

Abrupt and all-encompassing awareness comes to Lexa that she’s lying rigid as a board on her back while her bedmate veritably _lounges_ , and she attempts a slightly more relaxed position, tucking her arms behind her head. 

“Are you warm enough?”

“Yep. Thanks.”

“Are you thirsty? There are water bottles—”

“I’m fine,” Clarke teases, her words imbued with a smile, and Lexa squeezes her eyes closed at the sound.

“Okay. Good night, Clarke.”

“Goodnight, Commander in Chief.”

Each tick of the clock seems to be separated by hours as Lexa lays in bed next to her sister’s—beautiful, clever, funny, beautiful—girlfriend. It’s either been two full trips around the sun or less than a minute when she hears some shuffling.

“Lexa?”

“Yes?” Lexa fails to fake any sleepiness to her voice, her answer instant and alert.

“Do you usually sleep with all the lights on?”

“Oh.” She opens her eyes to the glaringly bright lights. “Er, no.” She claps her hands twice and the room is enshrouded in darkness.

The woman beside her bursts into giggles— _giggles_ —and they’re so genuine and happy that Lexa catches them too, even before she knows what Clarke is laughing about.

“The Presidential Bedroom," she gasps out in little staccatos. "At the White House. Has a _Clapper_?”

“I’ll have you know it was state-of-the-art technology during the Reagan administration,” Lexa sniffs.

Between all the laughter, it comes out as a snort.

Clarke snorts too.  It’s the most endearing sound Lexa's ever heard.

_Fuck fuck fuck._


	2. like two birds of a feather would be

DECEMBER 24th, 2020. MORNING.

 

Clarke Griffin was born in what may as well have been outer space, a tiny little two-horse town in the vast prairie lands of Montana, barely in contact with the outside world thanks to her father’s ambitious and later acclaimed Atmospheric Resource Conservation project.

(Honestly, there weren’t even two horses in the town. Mostly just a lot of tumbleweeds.)

(Literal tumbleweeds.)

And _oh_ , there’d been a time when young Clarke Griffin thought she could heal the wounds of the whole world, too. Just like her father. A time when she genuinely believed in the power of activism and the possibility of large-scale change.  A time when she’d fought and fought and _fought_ until the fight consumed her whole. Until the fight spit her right back out, half-digested and heart completely dissolved by cynical acid.

So she followed in her mother’s footsteps instead.

Clarke Griffin is the Chief of Pediatrics at the world-renowned Boston Children’s Hospital, winner of the ASA Medallion of Scientific Achievement, and more than one Top Doctor Award.  And she’s gotten this far because up to until about five years ago, she'd led a quiet private life, politely declining invitations to prestigious political events and charity functions in favor of sweatpants and snuggling up to her latest medical journal manuscript.

(Or Netflix. Clarke Griffin has never quite gotten over her seventeen-year-old self’s awe of moving pictures after being experiencing television for the very first time when the ARC project had ended and she suddenly fell from the vacuum of Montana’s space into the middle of New York City.)

So the fact that she's currently spending Christmas at the White House—the _White House—_  is overwhelming enough for several lifetimes.

Or at least it would be if she hadn’t just opened her eyes, snug and warm in the softest sheets she’s ever felt in her life, to _this_.  

Because also between these same bedsheets is the sole reason she’s been inspired to polish up her weapons and lace up her armor again over the past few years. Because she's snuggled up to her inspiration for joining Doctors Without Borders and Operation Smile, wrapped around the spark that rekindled her belief that she _can_ change the world, even if it’s only one life at a time.

It's Christmas Eve and Clarke Griffin is lying in bed with the fucking _President of the United States_. 

The gut-punchingly attractive President. The President whose inauguration speech is framed and sits prominently on top of her coffee table. The President whose likeness keeps spilling out of her dusty charcoals.

The President whose stomach she’s got her arm slung across.

The Presidential thigh she’s currently hugging between both of her own.

_Fuck._

Memories of the past few hours don’t come back gradually as she blinks down at the sight. No, they ambush her all at once—quick and vibrant and oh, god, so soft. It’s not the sheets that are responsible for how comfortable she feels; the 45th President of the United States is so fucking _soft._

Lexa Woods, Ph.D., LLM, wears silk pajamas, Clarke's had the misfortune to discover after being plucked from bed at two o’clock in the morning and bundled into the Presidential Bedsuite. Which—yeah, seems appropriate enough. The President deserves luxury. There’s no doubt it’s ethically sourced silk; humanely-treated silkworms or whatever.

Nope. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that these silk pajamas aren’t old-fashioned button-up ones with collars, reminiscent of fathers at Christmas time. Not in the very least.

They’re lavender shorts and a lacy tank top.

Thin. Strappy. Practically non-existent.

Clarke wonders if they’re going to have to give her the highest possible level of security clearance after seeing the President’s legs like this. If she’ll need to sign a new non-disclosure agreement after seeing the Commander in Chief without a bra. Undergo yearly lie detector tests after seeing those top-secret freckles dotted right over her sternum.

Because surely these must be America’s most classified secrets.

Or weapons of mass destruction.

(Dr. Clarke Griffin briefly wonders how bad a nuclear apocalypse could really _be_.)

The Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America smacks her lips and scrunches up her nose a little before yawning, eyes still closed. A contented sigh precedes a little burrow into the sheets and then rolling closer to where Clarke’s watching, wide-eyed and heart beating like the hooves of a hundred wild Montanan horses. There’s a hand tangled in the ends of Clarke’s hair, spread across the space between their pillows, and it’s not her own.

Lexa’s memories of the night before must assail her at a similar velocity, too, because Clarke can feel the exact instant she wakes up and identifies the source of the foreign weight on her lower body and the extra warmth under her bedcovers. She doesn’t react right away though, taking a moment to swallow and probably gather herself before cracking open an eye.

What the fuck is protocol for waking up with the Commander in Chief’s lips only millimeters from your neck?

“Um. Hi,” Clarke says weakly. 

“G—” Lexa tries and then has to clear away the sleep from her throat. “Good morning,” she finally manages. Her eyes are so green in the morning light and her skin reflects the sun like she’s an actual demigod and her hair is so wild and curly and free and Clarke is so, _so_ gay.

It’s really a travesty the woman she’s cuddled up to is so so _not_.  

(Er, a relief.)

“I voted for you,” Clarke finds herself blurting out. It hangs just as awkwardly in the bed sheets between them as she might have expected were she running on all mental cylinders. Which she’s not.

Because she’s lying in bed with the most beautiful woman in the whole world. Who just happens to lead the free portion of that world.

The President of the United States smells like lilac and baby powder.

_Fuck fuck fuck_

“Um, thanks,” Lexa replies after a moment. She takes the opportunity to increase the space between her lips and Clarke’s skin to a slightly more socially-appropriate distance.  There’s apology and possibly a little panic in her eyes so Clarke keeps talking, determined to make it go away. She may not have any clue what protocol should be in this situation but she refuses to believe that any of them involve worry marring such pretty eyes. 

“I guess that’s not saying much. Given your opponent the first time.”

“Right. I’ll…dial down my gratefulness then.”

“But I voted for you last month, too. Absentee ballot all the way from Kenya.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Just doing my civil duty.”

Clarke still hasn’t released Lexa from her koala grip. She’s not entirely sure why.

Lexa glances down at their entwined bodies but then swallows air and says nothing.

“Did you really visit Trump in prison? I won’t say a word.”

Lexa hesitates.

“You know, what’s said in the President’s bedroom stays in the President’s bedroom,” Clarke cajoles but her tone is teasing and it definitely doesn’t convey any serious hope of an answer. “Totally fine though. Without the truth, I’m free to continue my ultra-dramatic vision of events. Maybe that he’s already taken over the prison black market with grandiose promises and subsequently became the first inmate to file for commissary bankruptcy. Prison riots. Guards filing sexual harassment suits. Literal shit being thrown.”

Plump lips stretch into an instant grin and keep growing with each fantasy elaboration. “I _do_ trust you, Clarke,” Lexa says when Clarke finally takes a breath.

“Yeah?”

Lexa’s eyes crinkle and she wets her lips. “There was a lice outbreak,” she whispers, eager like she’s been holding onto this slumber party secret for far too long and she’s _dying_ to tell someone. “They shaved off all his hair.”

Clarke Griffin is a medical professional. She’s combat trained, has performed high-risk surgeries hundreds of times, and somehow she doesn’t possess the emotional control in this moment to inhibit a fit of giggles. Again. “Oh my god. Please tell me they wear orange jumpsuits.”

Lexa’s grin quivers and then succumbs to the giggle virus. “Yes! He looks like a soggy pumpkin. He’s _miserable_.”

“So much better than I was imagining—best Christmas present I could ever receive.”

They accidently knock foreheads in their laughter and the bed sheets tangle in knots and Clarke still doesn’t release Lexa from her koala grip.

She’s entirely sure why.

The President of the United States must have shaved her legs right before going to bed because they _really_ couldn’t be any softer; they’re so smooth it’s difficult to tell where the silk shorts end and those long, long legs begin. Clarke tries not to imagine her Commander in Chief lifting a leg against the bathtub edge and lathering it up with shaving cream and then dragging her razor silkily up, and up, and—

Her fantasy sequence is unfortunately (er, fortunately) interrupted by a soft knock at the door. They tear apart and all Lexa’s softness solidifies into rigid Presidential posture as she sits up and comes to stand on the other side of the bed. Clarke is quick to follow, clasping her hands in front of her while the President clasps hers behind herself.

“Enter,” Lexa calls out, steady and commanding.

A Secret Service woman Clarke doesn’t recognise from the night before pops her head in and then opens the door fully. “The situation has been resolved, ma’am.”

“And?”

The sharply-dressed guard glances at Clarke and looks a little uncomfortable for a moment. “It…wasn’t the toaster this time.”

“How reassuring.”

“It seems your sister and Mr. Blake couldn’t sleep and went exploring on the third floor. They tripped the intruder alarms.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. Of course.

“I see,” the President says, almost certainly not seeing at all.

The agent tugs at her tie. “We didn’t anticipate the use of the passageway from the Queen’s Bedroom to the Solarium. The security system has been re-configured for remainder of your guests’ stay. It won’t happen again.”

“It was resolved within two minutes of you locking us in here, wasn’t it, Harper?”

Harper clears her throat. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Of course. Will you please ask your team to review the length of the enforced lock-down? It can’t possibly be good sense for the President to be trapped with no override. And get someone to deal with my intercom system while you’re at it; I can’t get it to work.”

“Yes, ma’am. We have reason to believe that you many have…manually shut it down last night. Somehow. It’s why we couldn’t keep you abreast of the situation. Or communicate with you in order to override the system, as we implemented on your request after the last...toaster incident.”

The Commander in Chief blushes and it’s by far the cutest thing ever. “Ah.” Even the tips of her little ears go pink. Clarke pretends she doesn’t notice while storing the image away for when she’s next reunited with her oil paints.

“More fail-safes wouldn’t be a bad idea, however.”

Lexa bites her lip. “Right.”

To Harper’s credit, her face remains entirely passive even though amusement shines out from her eyes. “I also came to tell you that it’s ten hundred hours and the chef would like to know whether you’d like brunch this morning.”

Both Clarke and Lexa’s eyes fly to the wall clock, and wow.  It actually _is_ 10 o’clock. Fuck. Clarke hasn’t slept past seven since she was a teenager.

Lexa puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows at the Secret Service agent. “Are you telling me that the doors have been unlocked for hours and no one thought to inform us?”

Harper clears her throat again. Clarke’s beginning to wonder if the agent needs a cough drop. “We, er, did. But you were sleeping so peacefully and Octavia ordered us to facilitate as much sleep for the POTUS as possible, so…”

With a fond eye roll, Lexa loses some of her stiff posture and leans some of her weight against the bedframe. “Did Congress pass a new law last night granting the White House Chief of Staff greater executive powers than the President?”

“It’s Christmas,” Harper replies to the teasing softly. “You deserve a vacation, Heda.”

“I’m sending you all to Gitmo for _your_ next vacation if you won’t tell me what that acronym stands for.”

“You closed down Gitmo, ma’am,” Harper replies, completely unfazed.

“I closed down Gitmo,” Lexa echoes triumphantly, eyes sparking, and Clarke accidentally gives away a fairly significant portion of her heart. An aortic chamber or two. At the minimum.

“So…brunch at 1030 hours, Heda?”

“Get out of here,” Lexa laughs, shooing her away with a flick of her wrist and Clarke might actually be in love.

“Heda confirmed brunch!” Harper calls down the hall just before she shuts the door with a smirk and Lexa lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“You’re probably wondering how I run a country when I don’t even have control of my household.”

There’s no helping the smile that grows across Clarke’s face at Lexa’s wholly farcical exasperation. “I’m thinking that you run our country so well _because_ you’re the kind of person who gets on so well with your staff.”

“Hmm. They’re good people,” Lexa concedes, turning to face her. Her eyes drop down, then, and _shit_ Clarke had completely forgotten she’s standing in only an old Princeton t-shirt. Next to the President of the United States in her purple lingerie.

What a day.

“Would you like to borrow some sweat pants before you step foot outside into the lion’s den?”

“I’m sorry, you own _sweatpants_?” Clarke teases and Lexa’s eyes go all mischievous and sparkly.

“Of course. Wear ‘em under my suit jacket for conference calls with foreign heads of state all the time.”

“You...you do not,” Clarke argues, a little uncertainly.

Lexa laughs that beautiful, beautiful laugh again, all toothy and carefree and head flung back, and it’s so easy to forget sometimes with all she’s accomplished that one of her many accolades includes being the youngest elected President in history.  “No, I don’t. But I do own a couple of pairs. One moment.”

Just before disappearing into what be her walk in closet, Lexa grins over her shoulder and Clarke almost loses her balance.

“You know, I always assumed the President wore, like, star-spangled pajamas. Or velvet ones with a giant eagle on them,” Clarke calls after her, trying to find her feet with banter. “Not pretty little lacy ones.”

(She pauses and double-checks that came out right, that she didn’t just say that _Lexa_ is pretty. Because it’s on the tip of her tongue.)

Laughter wafts back from further away than Clarke expects (just how big is that closet?) and a moment later Lexa re-emerges with grey sweats over her arm and holding up the ugliest nightgown Clarke has ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on in her life.

It’s floor-length and full-sleeved, the shape of something she might imagine Martha Washington to wear, except that it’s bedecked from its high neck to hemline in embroidered flags and eagles and Statue of Liberties.

“Oh my god, I think America vomited on your pajamas,” Clarke breathes, wanting to touch it and at the same time stomp on it it. She’s never wanted to burn an image of her country’s flag more.

“A thoughtful and much-treasured gift from an ambassador shortly after my inauguration,” Lexa deadpans. And then the sides of her mouth quirk up and she gives up the ghost, grimacing at the monstrosity.

“Thank god it’s the kind of present they’ll never know if you actually wear or not.”

“You never know. The number of Presidential slumber parties has increased exponentially as of last night.”

“Good point.” Clarke grins and swipes the sweatpants off Lexa’s arm, playfully careful not to touch the sequined and tasseled nightgown in the process. Lexa turns away as Clarke pulls them on, returning the hideousness to the closet once she hears Clarke’s hum that she’s done.

A trail of glitter follows in her wake.

While Lexa’s hopefully refitting the nightgown into its shackles so it can’t escape and haunt their dreams, Clarke takes the time to properly look around the President’s bedroom without seeming nosy.

It’s not like she’ll have another opportunity.

It’s not like this is the first time in the last few years that she’s wondered about it.

(President Lexa Woods _is_ the most beautiful head of state in U.S. history, after all. Even if that particular accolade isn’t official anywhere but in Clarke’s head.)

The bed takes center stage, large and four-poster and situated in the middle of the room rather than backed against a wall-light wood and intricate. There’s a lot of empty space around it, like a couch or a seating area usually occupies the room as well but clearly Lexa hasn’t felt the need to bother with them. The lack of furniture might have made the room feel stark but somehow all it feels is airy and free, an oasis from the rest of the White House’s pomp and circumstance. Even the desk is out of eye-line of the bed, something Clarke suspects is intentional. All the politics and even the outside world seem distant in here, the ceiling high and walls bright and the two floor-to-ceiling windows streaming with sunlight.

The room does seem a little impersonal, though, especially since cameras have been forbidden in the private areas of the West Wing as they were during the Obama administration. The various portraits of influential U.S. women are the only hint of Lexa’s personal mark, and even with these, Clarke wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Michelle had left them here. Neither at the current Democratic 2024 front-runner’s choice in décor nor in the current President’s frugality. After all, The economy isn’t in surplus and the National Debt hasn’t been vanquished by accident.

The Chief Guardian of the Economy trips over the edge of a rug when she returns from the closet.

Not dramatically, but enough that Clarke stifles a laugh and pretends not to notice, focusing instead on trying to finger-comb her morning hair into some semblance of order. “Thanks for the sweats,” she says after giving up on her tangles with a huff; it looks like a shower and a gallon of conditioner are going to to be needed at this rate.

“You’re welcome.”

“They fit perfectly,” she feels the need to ramble when Lexa doesn’t say anything else and refuses to meet her eye. “Although that’s the good thing about sweats; they’re meant to be big and baggy. One size fits all.”

Clarke forces herself to shut up before she starts extolling how soft these sweats are. How good they probably smell. How she really hopes she makes it back to the privacy of her room before she investigates.

(It looks like it’s going to have to be a cold shower at this rate.)

Lexa’s still looking everywhere but at Clarke, probably still embarrassed at her slight clumsiness. She clears her throat. “Yes. You look…I’m glad they fit. Um, will you tell Anya that brunch will probably be ready soon when you get back? In the family dining room.”

Oh _fuck_. Anya.

Clarke’s completely forgotten about Anya.

Her ‘girlfriend’ Anya.

Oops.

The morning’s light atmosphere feels like it’s been sucked right out the window and even the blue skies outside seem a little more overcast.

“Sure thing. I’ll tell her when I’m back to our room. That we share. Together.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ , bed buddy.”

Lexa lowers her chin at Clarke with the upmost formality and then strides away with straight spine and square shoulders into her ensuite bathroom. The tips of her adorable ears are pink again and there’s a dusting of leftover sparkles in the dip of her throat.

Yep. Clarke Griffin just called the President of the United States her bed buddy. That actually happened.

And then she failed to keep her eyes off the Presidential ass as it walked away.

Clarke Griffin is well and truly fucked.

\--

President Lexa Woods has never regretted swearing an oath to protect every single one of the American people in her 2017 inauguration speech.

Not until she’s alone at the brunch table with Bellamy Blake.

As he drones on and on about…well, things that are doubtlessly important to him. Tax codes or something. Weaponry? Sushi fusion?

She takes a gamble and nods when he looks at her expectantly; Bellamy takes it as interest. And keeps talking.

The Chief Diplomat screams a silent scream.

Where the fuck is her sister? Where is Clarke?

(Lexa’s trying really hard not to think too much about what’s keeping them.)

But seriously. Why the fuck is Bellamy Blake here?

Like, at all?

Lexa’s halfway through her sensible spinach and egg white omelet—and trying not to fixate on the fact that Bellamy sounds like a grazing cow when he masticates his way through his third bowl of children’s cereal—when Octavia finally strides in, fresh-suited and immaculate as ever. She wonders how her Chief of Staff can _possibly_ be related to the man who chews with his mouth open and currently dons a quarter-sized dollop of ketchup on his chin.

“He’s only half genetically-related to me, thank god,” Octavia answers her unasked question, grimacing at her brother and throwing a linen napkin at his head. “You’re a pig.”

Bellamy looks confused and places the napkin his his lap.

Rolling her eyes, Octavia marches across the room to wipe his chin and then stalks back to the other side of the table. And then to the corner. And then to the hall and back. She’s holding a thin file folder tucked beneath her arm which she eventually places beside Lexa’s plate on one of her rounds, her movements tight and controlled as she finds one excuse after the next to fiddle with her phone or her headset or point to something in the briefings. Tidy the silverware drawer.

After a few minutes of this, Lexa clears her throat and asks the overwound aide to give her an update on the currency markets, something it thankfully takes several minutes of thumbing through the papers and then dashing out to the Oval Office to procure.

“O,” the mop-haired one complains once she’s back and the world market turns out not to have changed much in the thirty minutes since Lexa had last checked. “What are you even doing here? Surely you’re allowed vacation days. It’s Christmas Eve. Go home.”

Octavia walks over and whacks the back of her brother’s skull.

Lexa perks up her head.

“I’m spending Christmas Eve with my dumb-ass brother, that’s what I’m doing here. Now shut up and eat your fucking Captain Crunch.”

Bellamy doesn’t even defend his breakfast choice, too busy breaking into an unconscionably happy smile—did he not _hear_ the state of the Mongolian tögrög?—and grinning soppily at his baby sister. Lexa wonders how churlish it would be to send Octavia home after all, but then she remembers the reason her aide is _really_ here and bites back a smirk at the Muppet’s expense.

“I’ll need you to pick up Lincoln at Andrew’s Field later today, Octavia,” Lexa notes. “The rest of the aides and interns are off today.”

“Yes, ma’am. What time?”

“Um. Two?” As if Lexa has any clue.

Octavia actually pulls up her calendar and adds it, which is pretty cute. But then the shaggy one butts in yet again and Lexa has to focus instead on fending off an eye roll.

“I’ll keep you company,” Bellamy demands.

(Okay, he probably offers.)

“And miss out on playing golf on the White House lawn?” Lexa quickly interjects anyway.

Just as her competent Aide-de-camp begins a much better explanation about the tight security regulations at the Air Force base.

Two beady little eyes light up.

Fuck. Now she has to spend _more_ time with Baloney, Lexa pouts to herself, her Presidential mask firmly in place, of course. She holds a cup of coffee in front of her mouth. Just in case.

It’s okay though because Clarke finally emerges, all clean and fragrant and perfect, and she claps her skilled surgeon’s hands together at the news of Lexa’s completely-intentional excursion proposal.

It’s okay because Anya waltzes in only long enough to steal the President of the United States’ coffee mug right out of her hand and order Lexa to keep an eye on her accident-prone girlfriend since she has to take an emergency conference call.

(And, apparently, have a longwinded and extremely suspicious aside with her sister’s Chief of Staff, who whispers something that causes Anya to double over in choked-back laughter.)

It’s more than okay because the December afternoon just so happens to be bitterly cold and the edges of the Putting Green are covered in snow and ice and it only makes sense for Clarke to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her elected President—who has sworn an _oath_ to keep her people safe, which includes warm—while they watch Bellamy happily chop divots in the manicured grass. They make a brief detour into the Rose Garden once it’s obvious that Bellbottom doesn’t even look back to check when he clamors for them to watch a swing, confident in how utterly fascinating he is, and thank fuck, there _are_ such things as winter-blooming flowers.

Except that it’s not okay, because the heavens open up and snowflakes begin to sprinkle down in amongst the sunshine, catching the light and catching on Clarke’s golden eyelashes like glitter and catching the Commander in Chief’s breath in an iron vise. Because Clarke can’t seem to keep herself upright on the slippery path and Lexa’s heart can neither stand the constant panic each time she wobbles nor the very different kind of panic when the blonde eventually decides they might as well keep their arms linked together in this wintry fairy land.  

It’s not okay because Lexa lights a fire when they escape inside, leaving Bellyflop to his butchering of the poor innocent lawn, and hot chocolate with marshmallows appears like magic from the kitchen and cheeks are nice and rosy and they’re comfy cozy by the hearth and for the first time since she’d decided there could be no chinks in her political armor, the President of the United States slips for a few seconds and finds herself fantasizing about a life a lot like this.

A wife a lot like this.

Chestnuts and happy feelings and wonderful things they’d remember all through their lives.

And that’s the most dangerous not-okay of all.

President Lexa Woods excuses herself and snuggles close together with her bills and briefings, pretending she doesn’t notice the rose-scented perfume that keeps wafting over from her bed sheets.   

 


	3. westward leading, still proceeding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unsurprisingly, this fic has now exceeded its estimated length—hopefully just one more chapter left though. Thanks for your lovely comments so far, hope you're all having a great holiday season!

 

Bellamy Blake is a tax accountant.

But what he’d _really_ like to be, he drones on and on to his hostages in the library after dinner that night, is an ancient Roman historian. He likes the legends. He likes the political intrigue, the lore of the emperors, the wars, the _epicness_ of it all.

(Yep, the Bompus Bellend even makes up his own words. Lame.)

He has so much to say about it all. So much ‘passion,’ or so says Clarke, at least, smiling at him proudly and patting his shoulder when he becomes overwhelmed by his own platitudes.

President Lexa Woods, PhD, _Cantab_ , LLM, Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America, Commander in Chief is underwhelmed.

To be polite about it.

And make matters worse, Anya—stoic, unimpressed _Anya_ —seems to have caught whatever virus this man-child carries, nodding at his unimpressive points and laughing at his unwitty puns.

Lexa excuses herself to excavate the Presidential wine cellar.  

\--

Everything is _much_ more calm and bright when lovely, lovely Lincoln pops his head into the room an hour or so later. His arms dramatically unfurl with a twinkle in his eye when he sees Lexa but it’s fairly clear that the last thing he’s expecting is a tackle of a hug from his former wife and his cute bald little head being rubbed under Presidential fingers.

“Whoa. Now there’s a welcome,” he laughs as he staggers backward to accommodate her weight and then squeezes Lexa tighter, pressing his lips to her cheek. His voice goes soft. “Good to see you, Lex. Merry Christmas.”

“Joy to the world!” Lexa resounds into his ear while hugging him harder, not soft or quiet in the least. “I’m so glad you’re here, Linc. Lincoln Log. Linky Loo.”

The room has gone pin-drop silent.

(Probably because the guest with verbal diarrhea is staring at the Prime Minister of Canada with a slack jaw and sickly little dwarf stars in his eyes.)

 “So, _so_ glad,” Lexa whispers. Not very successfully.

“Me, too.” Lincoln tweaks her chin and straightens her rumbled blazer and the President of the United States considers whether it would be rude to drag her best friend far away purely so she can escape the amateur fucking historian for a few minutes.

And the blonde goddess with whom she wants to have at least a thousand babies.

And the sister who is dating the field-abiding seraph but keeps shooting smirks in Lexa’s direction for some reason every time she glances in Clarke’s general direction.

(Clarke’s sitting directly across from her at _eye level_. Where else is Lexa supposed to look?)

Sadly, the escapade whimsy is nipped in the bud when Lincoln gently peels her arms away and steps fully into the room. Because he’s Canadian and doesn’t know how to even _consider_ being impolite.

(It’s for the best. Because Clarke is so pretty. There’s no escaping her prettitude. Her star with royal beauty bright. Even if she can’t touch. Can’t.)

“Lincoln de Bois, nice you meet you,” the newcomer introduces himself to Bellamy who emits a delightful squeaky noise and turns the color of the Christmas tree ornaments. 

Which is to say, green.

“And it’s good to see you again, Clarke.” The Prime Minister’s easy hug with the breathtaking blonde throws into contrast the only-now discernable nervousness underlying in his interaction with the Droning Dimwit and with an amused curl of her lip that she manages to hide by itching her nose, Lexa remembers why her former law school study-buddy might just be a little anxious to meet his acquaintance.

Lincon’s kinda adorable.

Lexa kinda adores him.

As if on cue, Octavia strolls in and perches on the arm of the sofa, calm and professional but with a pretty pink tint coloring her cheeks. Her morning fidgetiness has completely vanished, Lexa’s pleased but not surprised to note.

Bellamy shifts into over-bearing big-brother mode immediately—probably to draw attention away from his squeak, Lexa suspects—and looks down pointedly at his watchless-wrist and then at his sister.

“Shouldn’t you have been back hours ago, O?”

Octavia shrugs. “Various delays.”

“Delays on a private VIP Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft?” the Bore Bandit prods.

“Oh, I’m sorry—I didn’t realize you’ve become an armchair expert in field of international air transportation now, too.” his sister says sweetly.

Bellamy grumbles incoherently and Lexa snorts, barely bothering to muffle the sound. Octavia deserves a raise, the President decides there and then, finishing her moderately-priced Cabernet Sauvignon in celebration with herself.

Lincoln patiently waits for the sibling bickering to end and then beelines for Anya in the middle of the sofa, ignoring her warning glare and lifting her right off the seat into a crushing embrace.

“Get the fuck off me,” Anya growls and they tussle for a bit before she gives in and softens her body into the hug for a whole two seconds.

“Great to see you again, An.”

“Get your ugly paws off me,” she grunts but her eyes betray crabby expression. She whacks the side of Lincoln’s head when he makes the mistake of releasing her arms. Undeterred, Lincoln plants a loud, wet smack on Anya’s cheek and then leans in to whisper something in her ear, glancing first at Bellamy and then at Clarke. Lexa narrows her eyes as Anya nods, the two of them sharing a look she can’t quite decipher before Anya shoves him away.

It’s probably about how boring Bellamy is.

(Or how beautiful Clarke is.)

“I’m glad you made it,” Lincoln says loud enough to include everyone else in the conversation again as he rightens and settles himself into the overstuffed chair Lexa had been occupying a moment ago.  He waves off Clarke’s kind, generous, beautiful offer of a drink. “I figured it would be little Lexa-Lu doing her annual performance of Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s always awkward to be the only audience member.”

“ _Tais-toi_ ,” Lexa huffs, settling herself on the chair arm and plopping her feet down in Lincoln’s lap. He immediately takes them in the guise of a foot massage and instead tickles them, clamping a strong arm arm across her calves just before she’s about to scramble backward and probably die of a neck injury.   

“I see you’re as sensitive as ever,” the Prime Minister of Canada teases, his eyes crinkly and fond while continuing to inflict cruel and unusual tortures on the President of the United States.

Three pairs of eyes are staring at them when they finally remember there are other people in the room and manage to locate their Head of State composure.

One pair is watching them with affection, barely disguised under her usual mask of disdain for the universe.

Another is watching them like they’re engaging in a public S&M scene and he can’t decide if he should be aghast or aroused.

And the blue ones, the ones that remind Lexa of her favorite crayon color as a child, that rare one from the special packs she had no chance of ever owning but sometimes got mixed into classroom sets and always disappeared before it could possibly be used up, no matter how hard she tried to find it—

Wait. The beautiful blue eyes are…dull and not shining.

Clarke’s jaw is clenched and so are her hands. She’s smiling but it’s a strained one.

Lexa has never sobered up so quickly.

She clears her throat and swivels around so her feet are on the floor. What the fuck was she thinking? Clarke had _said_ her relationship with her ex-husband is strained. And what does the United State’s Chief Diplomat Lexa fucking Woods go and do but flaunt her friendship with Lincoln right in front of her face. It doesn’t matter that the two situations are almost certainly not equivalent at all; Clarke believes them to be—hell, all of America believes the same—and that’s all that matters.

Anya stretches her arms up and then out to her sides like a teenage boy on a first date, draping her arms along the back edge of the couch. Her right arm falls onto her girlfriend’s shoulder, probably in comfort after Lexa’s callousness, but it seems Bellamy gets a little pat as well. “Enough horseplay, children. Is it time for presents yet or what?”

“We don’t get presents on Christmas Eve, Anya. It’s the rule,” Lexa reminds her sister for what must be the twentieth time with a sigh, grateful nonetheless for the change in subject.

“Pretty sure the rule was that foster kids don’t get presents any time of the year,” Anya replies blandly with her usual argument, the one that’s worked all twenty of those times. “Besides, you’re the President. Change the rules.” Lexa opens her mouth but Anya cuts her off. “And before you pull your tired ‘checks and balances’ card, I know about executive orders.”

“I don’t do those. They’re an abuse of power.”

“She really doesn’t,” Octavia confirms, popping back into the room after her check-in with Special Services on the third floor, “President Woods doesn’t need them.”

Lexa nods over at her, yet again satisfied in her choice for Chief of Staff. It had gotten…rocky about a year ago—well, not rocky, more like awkward—but even then they’d never lost their groove.

Which is good since Octavia currently holds _far_ too many state secrets.

“Making us wait until tomorrow morning is an abuse of power.”

“ _You’re_ an abuse of power,” Lexa sulks but Anya knows she’s won. Her sister is a pro at bringing out the petulant three-year-old child who never really got to exist in Lexa; heaven help America if Anya runs for a seat in the Senate like she’s been threatening to do while Lexa’s still in office.

“You two are fascinating,” Clarke marvels as Lexa stands and rustles through the gifts under the tree with exaggerated exasperation. “I’m not sure if you make me wish I had a sister or glad I don’t.”

“Oh, do you have brothers or are you an only child?” Lexa pauses in her search and turns around to hear more about Clarke.

“I’m an only child, I always—”

“Can we do the chit-chat later?” Anya complains. “It’s present time.”

“I love her, really,” the President grumbles as she stands and plops one of the identically-wrapped boxes in her sister’s lap. “That’s all you get tonight,”she warns Anya, pretending to flick her sister’s lip when she grins in triumph.

“You’re such a softie.”

“That’s privileged information, don’t spread it around.”

“You don’t think your subjects deserve to know you cry every time you—”

“You’re the worst secret-keeper that has ever existed,” Lexa interrupts before her sister can reveal one of the (many) movies or books Anya’s caught her in tears over. “You promised not to let that out. And don’t call them ‘subjects’. I’m a public servant. It’s why they give me a salary—in reminder of that fact.”

“And we all know how much you _love_ being the bott—”

“Stop right there,” Lexa hisses, crossing her arms before remembering they’re full of shiny boxes. “I’m _not_ a bottom,” she bites out under her breath as she stoops to pick them up.

Unfortunately, lovely lovely Clarke has—of course—sat forward to help pick up the presents off the floor and she stills, raising an eyebrow at her President.

“Er, I _wouldn’t_ be a bottom,” Lexa tries clarifying.

Anya only snorts.

“I’m the _Commander_. In Chief.” The Commander in Chief’s assertion is weak. At best.

Across the room, Lincoln is much better at hiding his amusement. He eventually saves her though, his legs long enough to kick Anya in the shin.  “Enough squabbling, children. I want my present. What did my darling former wife get me this year? My sock drawer is full up after the last few years.”

Smiling gratefully at him, Lexa passes him his present first before handing out the rest of the boxes.

Lincoln probably opens his gift carefully to preserve the wrapping paper.

Anya probably tears into giftwrap with her teeth.

Octavia probably whips out a blade from her pocket and slits it open with scary precision.

Bellamy probably…oh, who cares.

 _Clarke_ stares at the gold-wrapped present on her lap and then over at Lexa with pink in her cheeks and teeth biting her lip, and yep, that’s the reason the President has no idea her other guests currently exist.

“You really didn’t have to get us something—I mean, thank you, obviously, but you only knew we were coming a couple of days ago and you’re busy, obviously, again, and—”

“It’s my pleasure,” Lexa rushes to reassure her. “But you should open it before thanking me. Trust me.”

“Oh yeah?”

There are groans and huffs from elsewhere in the room but Lexa sees only Clarke, sliding her soft finger under the seam and parting the paper as delicately and gracefully as if she were performing heart surgery. Her lip remains between her teeth the whole time and Lexa tries not to let her imagination wander too much.

(It wanders.)

(It crafts images of Clarke in blue scrubs and a white coat.)

(Well _that’_ s a new fantasy genre for the 45th President of the United States.)

The worried lip becomes a bit-back smile that grows into one too big to contain with her teeth as Clarke lifts the lid to the box and figures out what’s neatly folded inside.

“Oh my god. You didn’t.”

“Everyone deserves presidential pajamas,” Lexa grins. “What do you think?”

“They’re so…patriotic,” Clarke laughs, pulling out the printed flannel pajama set, shaking out the top and then laying them above the pants out so they’re unfurled in full glory. “Wow. They’re so…red, white, and blue. And, oh god, is that George Washington riding a bald eagle?”

“Wait until you find Obama.”

“I…Ohhh, there he is.” Clarke bursts into laughter and has to take a couple of breaths before she can continue. “He and Biden are _ribbon dancing_ with their rainbow flags. Perfect.”

“Where did you even find these?” Octavia’s grin is more than just diplomatic as she toys with the hem of her set and Lexa’s doubly glad she included the woman in the family presents. She rightfully belongs in the group, and not just because of who she’s dating.

“It’s technically illegal to wear these, you know,” the Dilettante Dingo butts in before she can answer. “You can’t put the American flag on apparel. Not everyone knows that.”

Lexa ignores him.

“There aren’t any flags—only striped bunting which is permissible under Title 4.” Clarke rebuts the big old Butt. “In any case, it hasn’t been _illegal_ since the Flag Protection Act was repealed in 1990.”

The library suddenly feels overheated. Probably from Bellamy’s burn. That’s definitely it.

( _Fuck_. Reciting U.S. code is going to have to go on that fetish list, too.)

Bellamy blinks at Clarke. Clarke shrugs. “What? You know my dad was a big social rights protester in the Bush era.”

“Ha! Schooled.” Octavia chortles at her brother.

“I actually didn’t know that either,” Lincoln tries to assuage Bumble Butt, giving him a kind smile.

Bumble Butt looks like he’s going to faint.

Lexa stands up and turns down the fireplace, thankful to the sheen of sweat on Bellamy’s forehead for the excuse, detouring by the stereo system on her way back to the seating area to turn on a carol station. A song about candles comes up first and Lexa feels her shoulders start to relax before remembering a certain imprisoned tax felon’s face.

It gets a thumbs down rating.

Stupid Trump.

It’s really quite lucky the impotent narcissist had committed _actual_ crimes because Lexa would have found a way to convict him on the basis of ruining her love for candles alone. And that would have taken her a little more effort.

“These pajamas are vile, Lexa.”

Clarke elbows Anya. Hard.

“You’re welcome, An,” Lexa laughs. “I’m glad you decided we needed presents tonight; now we can all wear them to bed.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I love them,” Clarke says. “Thank you, Lexa. Did you already have these before our conversation this morning or..?”

“Oh, um, no. You inspired me.” Wait. That sounds _way_ too close to the truth. Shut up, President Hearteyes. “I mean, our conversation made me think of the idea. I sent someone out to purchase them.”

Clarke smile grows and softens at the same time. It’s so beautiful. Lexa grins back before she knows what she’s doing and they hold each other’s eye for a long moment.

“Which reminds me,” Anya ruins it in a delighted tone that bodes nothing good for Lexa. “You slept with my girlfriend last night.”

“Oh, stop it, Anya,” Clarke mutters, rolling her eyes and shifting away from her partner.

Bellamy looks uncomfortable.

Octavia looks smug.

Lincoln’s jaw drops.

“What’s this?” he ribs, nudging Lexa in joy and beaming over at Clarke and then at Anya. “Really? I _thought_ you’d be a good—” He seems to catch himself a second later, his eyes reflecting the turning cogs in his brain. “Er, what?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Lexa spits. “There was a security glitch last night and Clarke had the misfortune to be dragged into the Presidential Bedsuite for safety. Which was then locked. By the Secret Service—not me,” she feels the need to add.

“There are worse places to be trapped,” Clarke tries to joke but no one’s listening.

“Mmmhmm. And inviting her into bed with you was the _only_ option.” Anya looks way too happy about all this.

“It was 2am. What else were we supposed to do?” Lexa is perfectly aware she’s digging herself a deeper hole but she can’t seem to stop herself.

“What else, indeed. Luckily you were released a few hours later and the ordeal was over.”

Lexa swallows. “No one woke us.” She glares over at Octavia but gets only an innocently raised eyebrow in response.

“It wasn’t an _ordeal_ , Anya,” Clarke argues and strangely enough she looks more embarrassed than defensive or angry. It’s like there’s some in-joke here that Lexa is in no way privy to; she can only hope it’s not some sort of sexual roleplay…thing. “Let it go, okay?”

“But dearest,” Anya coos, just as oddly unbothered—it’s like this is just one more step in her plan to tease Lexa until her blush becomes permanently tattooed to her cheeks rather than an actual point of contention with her girlfriend. “I just want to exert my right to be jealous of all your bedfellows.”

“You really want to discuss last night’s bedfellows right now?” Clarke asks archly and oh god, she’s even more beautiful when she’s holding her own against a determined Anya. Lexa tries to look anywhere else but at her lips and fails.

“Don’t change the subject,” Anya deflects. “I need to know if I'll be fighting my sister for your honor.”

“Please,” Clarke waves her away and then her eyes turn a shade of mischievous blue. Which really _should_ be a crayon color. Far prettier than cerulean. “And for the record, if anyone’s a bottom here, it’s you.”

Anya gasps and looks positively violated for a moment. “Take that back.”

“Mmm. Pretty sure everyone here knows it, babe.”

“They do _not_.” Anya’s actually pouting, full lower lip and all.

Lexa’s over the moon right now, the corners of her mouth threatening to split right open, she’s grinning so wide; this conversation has got to be a Christmas miracle.

“Sounds about right to me,” Bellamy chimes in with a coy little smile, clearing his throat and scooting further toward the end of the sofa when Anya levels him an excoriating glare. Lexa cracks up but then looks at him suspiciously. Why are they on the same side? It’s surely a trap, some devious segue for the Unctuous Ultracrepidarian to start talking about Roman latrines or something again. 

“Yeah,” Lexa agrees quickly to head him off before he can try. “Plus, you’ve told me _all_ about your…once upon a midnight dreary…experience,” she taunts in her sister’s direction, careful to cypher the reference for Clarke’s sake. And for possible national security reasons. Maybe.

“Fuck off, Lexa,” Anya hisses.

But of course intelligent, astute Clarke recognizes the Poe and lights up. “Holy shit, you’ve slept with Raven, too!”

Anya’s eyes are so wide they may well fall right out of the sockets. “What? I— Wait. Too?”

“The head of NASA and I go _way_ back,” Clarke says with a lascivious gleam. “So does Bellamy, if memory serves.”

“Oh my god, are you talking about Raven Reyes?” Bellamy splutters.

“This isn’t happening,” Anya mutters and there’s a pause before she starts shaking, curling herself forward and pressing an arm across her stomach.  Lexa’s concerned for the briefest of instants until she realizes her sister is collapsed in side-splitting laughter.

“Just the one time!” he insists, his face red and blotchy.

Octavia’s hand shoots in the air. “Me, too! I’m part of the Raven club, too!" Bellamy makes a noise best described as a choking sound gone through the garbage disposal. "Oh my god, get a grip, Bell.”

Clarke gasps. “I _knew_ I recognized you! You were at that global warming solution celebration a couple of years ago—the one with—”

“Al Gore!” they both shout at the same time and point at each other with giant beams lit across their faces.

“I had no idea you were Bellamy’s sister!”

“I try to keep quiet about that!” Octavia enthuses.

“I totally understand!”

“Hey!” Boopy protests.

“I’m going to kill that best friend of mine for not telling me,” Clarke says, her smile still wide.

Bellamy gasps. “I thought _I_ was your best friend!”

(Lexa is way further than the moon. She’s at _least_ approaching the nearest star by this point.)

Bellamy is completely ignored as Clarke turns back to Anya. “This is awesome. When did you get the Raven experience? Isn’t she the best?”

“Um. Yes. A long time ago. Sweetheart.”

The sides of Clarke’s lips shake in mirth. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me. God, has _anyone_ in this room not slept with Raven?”

Everyone swivels their heads over to Lexa and Lincoln, silently watching the scene from their armchair.

“Don’t look at _me_ ,” they both say at exactly the same time, each raising two hands in denial and then bursting into laughter at the synchrony of their responses. Soon everyone’s laughing and the fire is roaring and this may well be the nicest Christmas of Lexa’s life.

“ _Anyway_ , back to these atrocious pajamas, Lex,” Anya tries again to move the conversation on after a minute or so. “I demand retribution for the pain you’ve caused our eyes. A photo of you wearing a pair for the press, perhaps.”

“Absolutely not. Some pundit would probably decide that they’re anti-American or something.” Lexa pointedly doesn’t look at Bellamy but he shrinks a little in his seat anyway.

“I’m pretty sure no one would question your patriotism in these,” Clarke chuckles, smoothing her hand over the fabric. Lexa runs her hands over the pair draped over Lincoln’s leg, glad that they’re just as soft and snuggly as she’d requested one of her aides to ensure. “Thank you. Again.”

“Yeah, thanks, Lex,” Lincoln adds, squeezing her knee. “Just what the Prime Minister of Canada needs.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Lexa teases, squeezing his knee back. “Maybe a photo for the press is a good idea, after all. You and me—the world could use a little holiday cheer.”

“Tell you what—I’ll do it if you pose next to me in that Canadian Mountie uniform you wore that one Halloween at Harvard.”

The President of the United States’ eyes widen. “Fuck, I hoped you’d forgotten about that by now.”

“Never.”

“Would you believe I got rid of the costume years ago?”

“Nope. You keep every item of clothing you’ve ever bought.”

“Damn.”

“It’s upstairs right now, isn’t it?”

“Definitely not.” It definitely is.

“Was it a sexy Mountie?” Clarke asks, sitting forward, enrapt. Her eyes are shining in amusement. “How would you even make a Mountie costume sexy?”

“I’ll give you one guess,” Lincoln tells her.

“It was far from sexy. The costume was as authentic as I could manage,” Lexa interjects before Clarke can voice her prediction. From the look in her eyes, she would have made the right one, though.  

Or maybe not. “I somehow doubt it was anything less than sexy,” Clarke casually notes and President Lexa Woods promptly short-circuits.  She starts coughing hard enough that Lincoln has to thump her on the back for good measure.

“You okay there, Lex?”

“I’m fine,” Lexa lies. Should her heart rate be this high? Should she ask the pretty doctor for a chest examination?

(Does Clarke carry a stethoscope around with her? A full doctor’s kit? These are important questions.)

“In any case, can you imagine the scandal if a picture of that night ever got out?” Brilliant diplomatic Octavia takes the heat off the limp and broken Commander in Chief in the corner, finally settling herself down on the coffee table rather than standing stiffly at the side. “Especially after all you went through during the first election about once being _married_ to the future Prime Minister of Canada.”

“Nah,” Clarke insists after the cutest little snort. “Everyone would assume it was photoshopped.”

Bellamy doesn’t laugh. He pushes his glasses up his nose and sniffs. “It would probably cause civic unrest,” he mutters.

Lexa blinks at him.

Thankfully Anya whacks him on the arm because it probably would have been inappropriate for the President of the United States to do that.

“Seriously though, how did those Halloween pictures _not_ make it into the press?” her sister asks once the mirth begins to settle. “Even I didn’t know about this.”

“There were no photos,” Lexa says firmly.

“How?”

Lexa shrugs. “I’m discreet.”

“She never left her room wearing it,” Lincoln betrays her. “She stayed in and studied.”

Clarke’s responding laugh is disbelieving but not in a derisive way. Because Clarke is compassionate and kind like that. So kind and wonderful. “That’s amazing.”

“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you bought a whole elaborate costume just to read dusty law books in it?”

Lexa sighs at her sister’s question. And a little at herself. “I love Halloween. I just…I didn’t want to waste my evening with law students and drunken political debates. And I borrowed most of the costume, thank you.”

It’s the truth but it’s also more than that. Law school was expensive, especially on top of the undergraduate loan repayments she’d refused to defer during her PhD or law degrees. And she couldn’t have afforded to let her GPA drop and risk losing the small scholarships she’d earned. So when the stars aligned and she had a night free from classes and her two part-time jobs, there was never any choice but to catch up on her schoolwork. Most of the other students had some sort of padding from their parents or a safety net, at least; Lexa had never had any of that. So if it meant she had to study instead of having fun with her classmates, she did what she needed to do.

It worked out well for her political career, at least—never attending parties or even going on dates meant a total lack of hidden scandal, much to her various opponents’ dismay over the years. Lexa Woods has led a genuinely clean and simple private life that even a nun would make fun of her over. Something that has actually happened.

“I love Halloween, too,” Clarke says softly and Lexa loves _her_.

No, wait.

Fuck.

Bellamy narrows his eyes at the pair of world leaders on the arm chair. “But I thought you two were married in law school. From January 15th, 2008 until June 27th, 2011.” He looks over at Lincoln. “You said _her_ room,” he reminds the Prime Minister in a tone that sounds more protective than accusatory.

Every single person in the room raises their eyebrows at Bellamy. He looks self-conscious for a moment and then doubles down, crossing his arms across his chest and glowering. “What? I told you, I’m a historian.”

Lincoln shrugs. “What can I say? Lexa’s always had a 51% share in everything. Pushy Americans.”

“And don’t you forget it, Canada,” Lexa quips, knocking shoulders with him.

“Mmm,” he agrees and then lets out a yawn that he covers politely with his hand. “Well, it’s been a long day for me. I might head over to, er, the guest house soon.”

“You should,” Lexa tells him, thankful he stopped by at all tonight. Not that she’ll admit Christmas is better with friends and family than with drafts and legal statutes. (It’s so, _so_ much better.) “Octavia can escort you over on her way home.”

“Absolutely,” Octavia agrees, stretching her arms above her head and failing spectacularly to hide her smirk when Lincoln’s lips part for another reason altogether. “Ready when you are.”

“Wait,” Clarke breaks in, sitting forward and letting Anya’s arm fall from around her shoulders. “Lexa didn’t get to open a gift. It’s only fair.”

The Most Useless Lesbian of the United States thinks she might actually melt into a gooey mess on the floor. And be 100% okay with that.

She swallows when everyone turns to look at her and tries to wrestle down the hearteyes even _she_ knows are there. “Oh, no, it’s fine. I got myself a pair of pajamas, too. All set.”

“Excellent,” Anya trills, rubbing her fingers together. “Group photo in the morning. _Private_ group photo,” she adds when Lexa shoots her a sharp look.

Clarke looks like she wants to protest or say something else but it seems she changes her mind and closes her mouth.

“Alright. Good night, Merry Christmas,” Octavia says and gestures toward Lincoln. “See you in the morning.”

“I’ll come stay with you tonight,” Bellamy decides magnanimously, rising up off the couch. “It’s Christmas Eve, after all. I know you won’t be able to sleep. I’ll read you _The Night Before Christmas_ like when you were little.”

Lexa rolls her eyes. And covers it politely with her hand. Sorta.

Bellamy Blake is the most clueless idiot in the history of idiots. How can he not see the entirely un-subtle dynamics going on in the room? Lincoln and Octavia have been eye fucking the whole time they’ve been here; it’s really not that hard to figure out. 

She supposes some people aren’t as skilled at reading relationship dynamics as others. Not everyone’s had diplomatic training and experience like she has.

“Stay here,” Clarke insists, reaching over Anya’s lap and tugging his sleeve, trying to force him back down. “It’s not every day you get to wake up to Christmas morning in the White House.” The Oblivious Ogre doesn’t look convinced. “Plus, I’m sure Octavia’s place isn’t ready for guests.”

See—even Clarke’s figured it out. She’s so clever. And beautiful. But mostly clever. And beautiful.

 _Sister’s_ girlfriend. Sister’s _girlfriend_.

“Nope. Sorry, Bell,” Octavia says firmly but kindly. There’s really no room for argument in her voice. “Next year, maybe.”

Bing-a-ling Boris doesn’t give up.

“You’re my sister. I changed your diapers. You think I’ll be shocked by a little clutter?”

“Sit down and shut your mouth,” Anya growls, clearly tired of the posturing. The Irksome Ire quickly obeys.

Lexa smirks—she’s glad that if nothing else, she and her sister see eye-to-eye on the annoyance that is Bellamy Blake.  

\--

Zoe Monroe has spent seven years as a police officer, five as a CIA agent, and has hailed as chief nighttime security detail at the White House for almost four years now. She’s been head of her class since grade school, including her whole time at Yale, the police academy, and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. She’s also received _numerou_ s commendations for her attention to detail and she takes pride in her diligence and sharp eye on the job.

(Even if it means that Agent McIntyre won't stop harping on about how quickly Agent Monroe draw her weapon at a rogue spider one morning.)

(The arachnid was _lucky_ that it posed no threat and was eventually cleared to return outside.)

Which is why it’s so adorable when the President of the United States thinks her movements around the West Wing are stealthy and undetectable as long as she walks on tiptoe.

Out of the Presidential Bedsuite with its two agents flanking the door.

Down the hallway where at least three more Secret Service guards stand.

Into the kitchen while Zoe and her partner follow behind at a respectful distance.

 (The flannel jammies and a pair of fuzzy purple socks on her feet that keep making her wobble on the polished floor make it even more adorable.)

Dr. Griffin pokes her nose out of the State Bedroom Suite and watches the President slip and slide toward the stairwell like she’s Bambi on ice until she makes it to the entrance, glancing back and forth furtively before darting through a tiny crack.

Two agents calmly follow a pace behind, Zoe speaking into her headpiece to ready the agents waiting at the entrances to every floor.

Clarke appears in the stairwell a few seconds later, nodding at each of the new agents along the way who don’t look surprised to see her.

Because they’re not.

To the extent that they even know what’s inside the gift-wrapped parcel tucked under her arm. 

(The President's probably going to cry when she opens it.)

“Give her a little warning,” Zoe suggests in a whisper as the doctor hesitates in the entryway to the library. “Heda startles easily.”

Clarke laughs at that. Her eyes are sparkling and the Secret Service agent can see why the President is rather smitten with this woman. She wonders whether the POTUS will break down and kiss the pretty doctor or if her sister (or even her sister’s fake-girlfriend) will tell her the truth first.

(Who’s she kidding? Zoe Monroe already knows the answer to that question.)

“Does she now? Is this a common occurrence?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified, ma’am,” Harper says promptly.

“That’s a yes.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Fine,” Clarke sighs with a fond little smile at the figure in the room who’s _still_ under the impression that she’s snuck past her bodyguards and yet continues to tiptoe in her frictionless slipper socks. “It’s not exactly hard to guess. Can you tell me you guys call her Heda, then?”

“That’s also classified.” But Zoe holds up a finger at Clarke for her to wait and then covers her earpiece microphone. “But I suppose it’s Christmas. I’ll need your word that it won’t go further than between us two, however.”

Clarke clasps her hands in front of her face in glee. “On my honor.”

Zoe smirks. “’Heda’ doesn’t mean anything. Some amalgamation of ‘leader’ and ‘head’ one of the agents accidently called her after being intimidated by her arrival. But only because the President heard and immediately started driving us bonkers trying to figure out its meaning.  Her guesses are hilarious; she’s convinced it’s an acronym. She’s at the point where she’s even experimenting in different languages, now.”

“Oh my god, you’re awful,” Clarke laughs and Harper grins back before clearing her throat and adopting her deceptively-passive stare straight ahead again.

Rattling the door handle to announce her presence, Clarke slips into the library and lets the door almost but not quite close behind her. The room is dark but through the crack the agent can see the President bent down in front of the still-lit fireplace.

“Have I just caught the Commander in Chief leaving cookies for Santa?” Agent Harper hears Clarke ask.

The Commander in Chief squeaks and falls right on her ass.

Zoe Monroe hides a smile; almost four years and still no surprises on her watch.


	4. yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Lexa Woods is no stranger to the art of stealth. The ability to blend into her surroundings, the delicate balance between moving fast and moving silently, remaining alert while also affecting a neutral facial expression—they’re all skills that have served her well both as a scrawny little foster kid with a lisp and more metaphorically throughout her successful political career.

So it’s no surprise that her top secret holiday mission remains undetected, even in her fourth Christmas at the White House with no less than a small army of Secret Service agents trained on her every move.  It’s a simple matter of the right equipment—sound-absorbent foot coverings, for example—alongside decades of expertise in complex footwork. Combined with cool-headed vigilance.

In another life, Lexa Woods was probably a CIA agent.

(Maybe she’ll lend them her services once her Presidential gig is up, actually…)

She maneuvers with easy grace through obstacles like ridiculously over-polished floors and doesn’t fall for the trap of the light switch once she’s back in the library, relying instead on her hawk-eyed vision and the ambient light of the Christmas tree to guide her to the fireplace.

Disaster strikes just as she delivers the package and is about to hightail out of there: an unexpected sound at the doorway that sends her vision white for a split second.

Lexa freezes. Maybe if she doesn't move, whoever it is won't spot her.

A throat clears.

“Have I just caught the Commander in Chief leaving cookies for Santa?” 

Mighty dread seizing her troubled mind, Lexa starts to turn but instead trips over the hem of her jammie bottoms, arms casting around empty air before face-planting to the floor.

On the carpeted floor.

(Fucking fuzzy slipper-socks)

Clarke rushes over. “Sorry! I tried not to startle you.”

Her body far too flushed to enjoy the snuggliness of her new flannel pajamas at that moment, Lexa instead stares up at the glory Clarke in hers. They’re so form-fitting and her form is so wonderful and Lexa should probably close her eyes before the beautiful woman sees her drool. Again.   

“Um, no, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Fine?” Clarke echoes mischievously. She holds out a hand and Lexa wonders if it might be more prudent to govern the United States from the floor of the White House library rather than touch those soft fingers again.

“You know, I always suggest my pediatric patients wear socks with non-slip soles for this exact reason,” the pretty hand’s owner comments as Lexa grasps it and allows herself to be pulled to her feet.

“Are you implying that I’m a child?” Lexa protests, dusting herself off and tugging her oversized pajama trousers back up her waist. Only one cookie has fallen to the floor and she returns it to the plate, a whispered apology to the jolly old elf as she does so.

“Never, Commander. So. Back to the milk and cookies…”

“And carrots for the reindeer,” Lexa lowers her eyes and admits, begrudgingly.

“You’re kind of adorable.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Lexa pleads, half joking and half sore-afraid. “Especially Anya.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“I…didn’t get to do all this stuff when I was young. There’s no such thing as tradition when you’re in a different home every year. So I try to do it now. It’s silly, I know.”

Clarke—soft, beautiful Clarke—softens even more than she already is. “It’s not silly at all.”

“People say when you have kids, Christmas becomes magical again. I doubt my life would ever allow for that, so I have to make my own magic, I guess.” Jesus _Christ_ , Lexa curses at herself, wishing she could just shut the fuck up—what is it about this woman that causes her to babble forth all her hopes and dreams and deepest fears?

“I think you make magic where ever you go, Madame President,” Clarke says quietly and reaches out and takes Lexa’s hand. Just for a second, just for a brief little squeeze, but oh god, _that’s_ something better than magic.

Lexa bites her lip into submission. “What are you doing down here? Did you forget something?” How does Clarke look this beautiful in those absurd flannel pajamas when her own are so baggy and shapeless? Why must the Christmas tree lights circle her head in a perfect halo?

Clarke looks embarrassed for a moment, hesitant to answer like she’s trying to figure out some other reason than the real one, but she seems to come to a decision and shakes her head. “No, I wanted to bring you your present. From me. I still think you should have gotten to open a present tonight. Everyone else did.”

Her throat tightens and Lexa dimly suspects she’s looking at Clarke like she’s actually the angel Gabriel.  “You didn’t have to—”

“I know. I wanted to. Besides, I’m a little embarrassed about it, so it’s better if there’s no other audience.” Clarke chews on her lip. “What do you get the President of the United States for Christmas, anyway?”

“I…You didn’t need to get me anything. I should have told Anya, I didn’t think—”

Clarke rolls her eyes and goes over to the tree, fishing through the pile of red and green and gold presents for a small flat one wrapped in brown parcel paper. There’s no tape, only a little red string holding it all together. “Just open it, will you?”

She takes it from Clarke’s outstretched fingers and turns it carefully around in her hands, staring down at the packaging and imagining the blonde cross-legged on her apartment floor, measuring out the paper and cutting the string. She finds the seam and tries not to let her hands shake while sliding off the bow, fixing her eyes on the parcel and not on those blue eyes that insist on multiplying the twinkling stands of lights tenfold.

For the first time since she was a teenager, Lexa has to remind herself to taper back her expectations. She’d never quite managed it as a young child in the foster care system, her hopeless little heart fleeing the protection of her chest and flinging itself into the knives of reality every single Christmas. As if _this_ would be the year there would be something in the tattered sock tucked into foot of her bed so no one would see, as if _this_ would be the year it wouldn’t remain flat and untouched in the morning light. A well-meaning foster sister had once explained that the reason for St. Nick’s negligence was that kids in the system changed addresses so often that the North Pole simply couldn’t keep track.

But tonight she slides the mounted canvas out of its wrapping and it seems Santa Claus has found Lexa Woods at long last.

It’s a black and white drawing, charcoal or pencil, maybe. Beautiful and talented, absolutely, but it’s the moment of time it depicts that causes every scripted thanks readied in Lexa's throat to catch.

“I know it’s not much and I couldn’t find a good visual reference—the camera angle must have changed for some reason—but I was in the crowd the night of your 2017 Inauguration Address. And there was this moment when you paused and put your hand over your heart.”

“My dad had died a few years previous,” Clarke continues after wetting her lips. “Friendly fire on a humanitarian mission gone wrong. I was still so bitter and discouraged at the time. I’d dropped all my lofty save-the-world goals because I couldn’t figure out the point in trying to make the world a better place if all it resulted in was pain and death.”

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” Lexa murmurs and Clarke shoots her a watered-down smile. 

“But then there was moment in your speech when you were talking about fighting for what you believe in and making the world a place where all children can thrive and there was this _look_ in your eyes. Tender but also like you had heaven’s whole battalion readied at your back.  I’ll never forget it.”

Lexa sinks down onto the cream sofa and Clarke fidgets, raising her fingers to her mouth and then to the buttons on her nightwear.

“That’s the moment you inspired me to take up my fight again. That I couldn’t run away from my pain. The moment I realized that even one life improved could mean _everything_.” Clarke falters and swallows before continuing. “So, um, yeah, thank you.”

Lexa swallows and runs a finger across the sketch, careful not to smudge. 

“I lost someone special to me, too,” she says after a few seconds, practically in a whisper. “Caught in police cross-fire.”

Clarke stills and then sits on the edge of the couch. She’s not fidgeting anymore and Lexa takes a long, steadying breath.

“I thought I’d never get over the pain. But I did.”

“How?” Clarke asks softly.

“By recognizing it for what it was—a reason to fight. A career in politics had never crossed my mind at that point but from then onwards, justice and legislation became my sword and armor.” Lexa nods toward the drawing cradled on her lap like the priceless artifact it is. “This moment, right here—it’s important to me, too. I had a photograph in my breast pocket of my suit. That part of the speech was…it was a promise. That my fight would never be over.”

A warm hand covers hers, hesitating only a millisecond before Clarke laces their fingers together. Lexa hadn’t even noticed her hands shaking until they’re not.  

“Her name was Costia.” Lexa keeps her eyes firmly fixed on the artwork. Her heart should be pumping so much more frantically but somehow the words only stabilize its rhythm.

(The words and the foreign pulse beneath her thumb.)

“It was a drug raid on her foster house. She was just shy of eighteen years old when she died in the ambulance, only _days_ away from escaping that awful place.  She was beautiful and kind, stubbornly optimistic despite how hard the system tried to knock it out of her… and I wanted to marry her one day, legality of gay marriage at the time be damned.”

Two blue eyes widen a little and Clarke sucks in both her lips, but the hand in hers only tightens its grip. She looks like she has a thousand questions and responses to that giant revelation but they’re all pushed aside for a small smile and another squeeze of Lexa’s hand. “There’s no way she wouldn’t be proud of all you’ve achieved.”

Lexa opens her mouth and then pauses. Allows herself to consider it. Her throat is too thick to swallow, much less speak, but she manages to lower her chin in cautious acquiescence.   

“Thank you for trusting me,” Clarke murmurs after a spell of peaceful silence. “I’m sure it must be hard for you to talk about her. Especially in your position.”

“I already told you I trust you,” Lexa tries to joke but of course it falls flat; Clarke gives her a serious nod.

“You did. And I appreciate it.”

“Thank _you_ for the artwork,” Lexa says sincerely. “It’s honestly the most wonderful present I’ve ever received.”

“Thank _you_ for bringing us all justice,” Clarke counters, a gleam of levity returning to her eyes.

“Thank _you_ for bringing me peace.”

“Okay, this is getting sappy.”

“Agreed. We need to stop.”

“I concur.”

Clarke doesn’t let go of Lexa’s hand.

Lexa doesn’t try to pull it away.

“So, um,” Clarke starts, clearing her throat. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you identify as bisexual or...?”

“Oh, no, yeah, it’s fine to ask,” Lexa stammers, entirely out of practice with this kind of conversation and feeling like a self-conscious baby gay again. “I’m a lesbian. Give me vaginas or give me death.”

Lexa flinches— nope, that really couldn’t have been more awkward.

Clarke bursts into laughter. “Oh my god. You actually just said that.”

“I…did.” Lexa curses the future decades of celibacy she’ll never escape since she can’t even discuss her sexuality like a normal human being.

“This is too good for real life. I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

“Let’s go with that,” Lexa agrees with a grin. Clarke grins back and readjusts their fingers and Lexa wonders if it might be unhealthy to be this goddamn happy.

“Can I ask what’s the story with Lincoln? Did you figure out your sexuality after? I ended things with my husband after I found him cheating on me—I’m bi, if that wasn’t clear—but I’ve known women who only realized they were gay after being married for awhile or later in life.”

“Ah. No. Lincoln and I…that was a mutually-beneficial marriage of convenience with my best friend. Some of which was financial—he was a foreign national and I wouldn’t have been able to afford Harvard Law without a more substantial financial aid package, so being married—married to _anyone—_ made sense. Other reasons were more…political in nature.”

“Political in that you already knew you were enroute to the White House and didn’t want any questions about being single?”

“In politics, _everything_ is a potential weakness,” Lexa defends herself. “I already had so much stacked against me, I couldn’t let my sexual preferences be one more target. In hindsight, I might have done things differently, but that was the climate of the time.”

“The Bush era _was_ a shitty, shitty time,” Clarke agrees.

“I’ve never lied. Not once. Luckily, a marriage certificate to someone on track for Prime Minister in Canada proved enough of a distractor. That and compulsory heterosexuality, obviously.”

Clarke hums and falls quiet for a few seconds, her gaze long and searching.

Lexa squirms.“It’s dishonest to myself, I know. I _know_. But it’s not like I’ve dated; there’s no secret girlfriend masquerading as a gal pal or anything…”

“You haven’t dated since Costia?” Clarke asks softly.

“No. I’ve…been busy.” Lexa Woods is in a full-time relationship with Lady Liberty and she’s high maintenance enough. It’s _enough_.

(For the first time in two decades, it doesn’t feel like enough.)

“Not even casual...?”

Lexa feels her cheeks erupt into a volcano of color. “No.”

“Wow. Okay. That’s a long time.” Clarke bites her lip. “Well, on behalf of America, thank you. I guess.”

“My pleasure. Or lack of pleasure, as the case may be.”

“ _Lexa_ ,” Clarke chokes, eyes twinkling and hand over her mouth failing to contain a guffaw. “Sorry, it’s not funny, I know, but—”

Shaking her head to indicate she’s not upset, Lexa grins and lets her gaze drop to their entwined hands.

“Maybe one day. When I’m out of the spotlight or when America progresses a little further. I won’t risk all the advancements and legal freedoms I’ve worked for…for the uncertain pursuit of personal happiness. It might seem harsh but it’s how I’ve survived thus far.”

Clarke nods but Lexa can see the wheels in her brain turning. Several times she opens her mouth and then closes it again.

“Say whatever you want to say. I can take it—years in politics means I have a pretty thick skin by now,” Lexa assures her.

Clarke takes a deep breath and looks away before turning her gaze straight on the President. “It’s just…things have changed so much, even in the past few years alone. You obviously know the political world better than I do but…well, maybe your sexuality doesn’t have to be a weakness. Look at how much you’ve achieved, how many opponents you’ve razed to the ground and how many coalitions amongst warring parties you’ve brokered.  Maybe you’re the only person in the whole world who _could_ turn it into a strength.”

Lexa swallows. The usual internal arguments bubbles up, the automatic dismissal of such a possibility, the same old ‘love is weakness’ motto drilled into her by her last social worker. But for the first time, she stares at them with more than her usual blind-eyed acceptance. For the first time, she looks for their holes and begins to draw her swords of righteousness just as she would for any other flawed proposition.

“Maybe,” she finally manages to say, looking anywhere but at the woman beside her.

“Again, it’s not my place. But, Lexa—don’t you deserve better than just surviving?”

The fire glow casts across Clarke’s cheeks and snow continues to fall outside, snow on snow on snow, and oh _god_ are her eyes like flame.

“Maybe I do.”

If Lexa’s life was a movie, now would be the exact moment for the climactic kiss. The timing is right, their lips are only inches apart, the fire is crackling, and the words they’re saying are clamoring for a bang of the cymbals; she can almost hear the swell of gay-ass violins in the distance.

Except that _this_ romance stars Anya as the leading lady.

And Lexa reminds herself that she's little more than the comic relief, the clumsy lovesick fool who probably serves little more than as a side story and at very best the inspiration for Clarke to propose to her girlfriend on Christmas morning or something. The one who walks into doors and trips over her own feet and falls in love with the completely unattainable co-star. The one with no theme music of her own.

The President of the United States pulls her hand away from those of her sister’s girlfriend and pushes up from the sofa, clasping her hands behind her back so they don’t reach out for what they really want. 

“Lexa,” Clarke whispers, stunned in place; her lips are glistening and her eyes are searching, flickering back and forth like she’s trying to read something in Lexa’s stare.

“Thank you for allowing me to share tonight, Clarke,” Lexa says rigidly, proud that her voice doesn’t shake. “And for your gift. It is much appreciated.”

“Lexa—” Clarke protests for some reason, leaping to her feet and trying to step closer; Lexa takes a hasty step backward.

“Merry Christmas. I will see you and Anya in the morning.”

“ _Fucking_ Anya,” Lexa thinks she hears under Clarke’s breath but it doesn’t really matter. She turns and tries to measure her paces so it doesn’t look like she’s fleeing.

She makes it as far as door when Clarke springs forward and captures her arm, halting her retreat. “Lexa, it’s not what you…it’s not like that, I—”

Taking a deep breath, Lexa focuses on the coiled-up earpiece wire in the nearest Secret Service agent’s ear, flanking the doorway to freedom. “I’ve never seen Anya so happy. Not even when the Supreme Court overturned Baker vs. Nelson in 2015.”

(And that’s saying something. Given that Anya was photographed singing _karaoke_ the night same-sex marriage became legal in all fifty states.)

“Thank you,” Lexa continues, despite the personal cost to her foolish little heart. Always despite the personal cost. “I…she deserves every happiness.”

The hardest part is that Lexa means every single word.

“She does, she _does_ , just not…I’m not.” Clarke huffs, frustrated, and Lexa clenches her jaw, studying the columns of mini Christmas trees lining the hallway as if the number of pine needles on each branch is a matter of national security. “Listen, it’s not my story to tell. But can you promise me you’ll talk to her in the morning?”

“What is there to discuss?” Lexa grits out, wanting nothing more than to make it to her bedchamber of solitude before the tears escape. “There is nothing. It is nothing. I—”

“Tell her you need to discuss this.”

And then a soft hand comes up to float just above her weary cheek.

And then a pair of soft lips bend near hers, on hovering wing.

And then the heavens open and a shining throng of angels appear, singing glad tidings of goodwill and joy for those upon whom their favor rests.

(Clarke kisses Lexa like she’s something precious—something golden and delicate and beautiful.)

(The tears escape.)

Clarke gently runs the pad of her thumb across a pair of glistening cheeks when she pulls away.  “Was that okay?” she asks quietly.

Lexa blinks. Wets her lips. Nods.

(Clarke _tastes_ like red, red roses.)

“Talk to Anya,” Clarke repeats, a smile beginning to crest across her face like the sunrise after the bleakest of midwinter nights. “Trust me one more time today. And come find me after, okay?”

Lexa nods. And then nods again.

She’s still nodding as the Seraph rubs her arm and glides down the marbled hall, still nodding as she’s given an over-the-shoulder smile before Clarke disappears into the stairwell.

Still nodding as Agent Monroe clears her throat from her position at the door.

“Go get her, Heda,” the Secret Service agent murmurs, her eyes firmly fixed ahead as always.

“But...what if…” Lexa finds herself stumbling out, frozen in place.

“Fear not. For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to _all_ people,” Zoe recites while continuing to stare straight ahead, the tiniest little quirk at the corner of her lips.

The motion-activated lights begin to flicker off one-by-one in the hall, darkness encroaching nearer and nearer, and maybe the clumsy love-sick fool doesn’t have to be the star of the show. Maybe she only needs to follow it. 

Lexa Woods doesn’t dampen the sound of her movements on her way back upstairs, doesn’t tiptoe or close the door quietly to avoid detection. Doesn’t slink along walls and remain undetectable.

She _runs_. She tugs off her socks and she clatters and she holds up her pajama waistband with one hand and she runs and runs and runs.

\--

“Your sister is on the third floor!” one Secret Service agent calls out as she turns into the second floor. The ribbons and strings of lights lining the Executive Residence are little more than a festive blur as she spins and changes direction from the State Bedrooms.

“The Sun Room!” another updates her as she sprints up the next flight of stairs.

“We’re cheering for you, Heda!” Agent McIntyre shouts just as she skids to a stop in front of the closed door.

“Merry Christmas, Madame President!” Agent Miller yells over from the opposite side of the hallway.

Lexa Woods grins at each and every one of them before bursting into the room, President of the United States, its Chief Diplomat and Commander in Chief, recipient of three Nobel Peace Prizes and a 97% public approval rating. Her adversaries fear her. Her allies adore her. 

And somewhere, _somehow,_ a thrill of hope springs forth that there might be a selfish speck of joy in this world just for her.

\--

The world inside the double doors turns out to be a vile, disgusting place.

“What the _fuck_?” Lexa yelps and shields her eyes from the sight of a shirtless Bellamy with his tongue in her sister’s mouth. “What the fuck are you doing?” she growls, louder this time, storming forward blindly and lashing out where (she hopes) the back of their heads are located.

There’s a whimper and some rustling sounds that better the fuck be clothes being replaced before she dares opening her eyes again, just in time to spy Boris Baloney trying to dart of the room.

“Stop right there and explain yourself,” she orders lowly, her voice dropping into the deliciously dangerous lower octave that has made grown army generals pee their pants. On several occasions.

Billy-Bob Bobo is nowhere as smart as her military leaders.

He keeps sprinting.

Lexa follows after to punch him or trip him or at _least_ draft up a kill order on the idiot but Anya stops her with an arm on hers. “Lexa,” she growls. “Calm down.”

Lexa shakes off the grip but allows the imbecile to escape with his life for the time being, settling into a pattern of pacing. “Did he hurt you?”

Anya only snorts. “What? No. Lexa, listen—”

Details and facts begin to piece themselves together and Lexa gasps on her fifth rotation around the chaise lounge and halts in place. “Oh my god. Last night, setting off the alarm and tonight—you’re cheating on Clarke!”

“I’m not, I—wait. _That’s_ what you’re mad about?”

“Of course it is! You _must_ know that her ex-husband cheated on her, how _could_ you—” Lexa rants, white hot angry for the angel a floor down. Completely forgetting why she’d come in here in the first place.

“Lexa. Stop.”

God, why must Anya always remain calm? It’s so much more difficult to be this righteously angry when her sister is standing there with a little smirk on her face.

“I will not. Get out,” Lexa snaps, pointing at the door.

“Lexa. I’m not dating Clarke.”

“And take that man-child with you!”

“Lexa.”

“I—wait.” Lexa stops dead in her tracks. “What?”

Anya sits back down and spreads her arms across the back of the lounge. “There we go.”

“What?”

The smirk grows into a full-blown Cheshire grin. “To repeat: Clarke and I are not dating. Dating we are not. No dating.”

“But—”

“I convinced her to come here with me as my…huh, I don’t know what you’d call it. Opposite of a beard? Nah, that’s not quite right. Maybe though…hmm.” Anya appears to drift off in thought and Lexa wonders exactly how much trouble she’d be in if she threw her sister off the Sun Room balcony.

“Get to the point, An,” Lexa snaps.

“Right. Fake girlfriend might be a better term. Smaller possibility of being derogatory. Anyway, once you ordered me here for the holidays, I knew I’d be forced into press photos and all that shit.”

“So?”

“So I wasn't ready for the press to know their so-called ‘Lesbian Darling’ was dating a dude. Imagine the confusion and potential backlash. I’ve got a lot of LGBT initiatives going right now and we can’t afford to have them compromised in any way, even if it’s only by ignorance.  Bisexual awareness has gotten better but it hasn’t fully penetrated the American population yet.”

Lexa grimaces at the wording.

“Yeah, I heard it, too.” Anya clears her throat. “Anyway, we’re working on our public awareness campaigns but in the meantime I wanted spend the holidays with my boyfriend but also with my sister. Who happens to be the fucking President of the United States. Enter Clarke.”

When Lexa only gapes, Anya sighs and continues, a little less glib in tone now. “I’m sorry we kept you in the dark. For the record, Clarke wasn't happy about it either, especially once she met you. I figured it was better to give you plausible deniability, though. I know how much you hate lying."

“Clarke’s…single?”

“Oh my god, this is precious. Is that all you took away from that? Lincoln and I _thought_ she’d be your type. Even if your type's been exclusively short and leather-bound recently.”

Lexa looks at her blankly.

(Clarke’s not dating Anya. Clarke’s not dating Anya. Clarke’s not dating Anya.)

“Your beloved law books and briefings. Jesus Christ, baby sis, you’re a goner.”

(Clarke’s _not_ dating Anya.)

Lexa unsheathes her Commander in Chief voice again, taking a step toward Anya—she has to admit it feels good when her sister-in-all-but-blood flinches back a little. “Is. Clarke. Single?” she demands.

“Almost as single as you are. And luckily for you, I suspect she may have a teeny crush on you.”

“No she doesn’t,” Lexa gasps and fails to suppress some suspiciously pre-pubescent giggles. “Do you think? She kissed me but…”

“ _Did_ she?” Anya looks like the cat who got the cream. Or rather the cat who caught the mouse and tore it apart and left the disemboweled remains under her human slave’s pillow: looks of glee in her eyes have always taken on a slightly violent hue… “Good on her. That poor woman hasn’t stopped babbling on and on about you since we’ve gotten here.”

“She’s really pretty,” Lexa sighs, flopping down on the chair across from Anya. “And so smart and compassionate and she smells like—” She stops. “Wait.”

“Mmm, there it is. Glad you managed to get your head out of Clarke’s—”

“Anya!”

“Lexa!” Anya taunts back but she nudges her sister’s foot a little.

“You’re bisexual,” Lexa states.

“A+ deduction skills. Are you angry?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“Because that’s what we bonded over as lost little gay foster babies?”

“I’m surprised, I have to admit. But I’m not angry.”

“I honestly didn’t know until Bellamy but looking back, maybe I should have guessed. I thought they were just innocent boy crushes.”

Lexa wrinkles her nose. “Bellamy? Really?”

Anya shrugs. “Caught me off guard, too.”

“But he’s…” Lexa can’t even _begin_ to list off the infinite number of small annoyances that make up Blimpy Borkison.

“Oh, he’s a complete idiot, I agree. But he has a good heart.” There’s a long sigh that sounds like defeat. “And I love him.”

Lexa’s jaw drops and she stares at her sister in stunned silence. “You love him?” she finally forces out.

Anya scowls and crosses her arms, glaring down at the lounge chair as if it’s personally insulted her. “It appears so.”

“ _Bellamy_?”

A bubble of something almost resembling laughter escapes Anya’s throat and she cocks her head at Lexa. “You’ve never liked anyone I’ve dated. Ever.”

“They’ve never been good enough for you.” Briony Brakepad. _Seriously_?

“You’ve already come up with a huge number of insulting nicknames for him, haven’t you? Ones that started out clever but just became increasingly ridiculous as time went on?”

“No,” Lexa lies. Briney Bonk. Butty Bumpo. Blimpy Bong. Borky Borkison.

“Remember my short-lived fling with Tris?”

“Tri-cornered Triscuit? Triskaidekaphobia? I despised that girl. But she was asking for it with that name. What does it even _mean?_ ”

“And Abby?”

“Gabby Blabby Abby? Grabby Hands? Dr. Crabbie Pants? Ugh. I’m so glad you ended it with her. She was too old for you, anyway.”

“Just wait until you meet your future mother-in-law,” Anya sing-songs. “You’re in for a treat.”

Lexa narrows her eyes. “Huh?”

“My point is that you always find the people I’m dating to be annoying. The fact that you fell in love with Clarke and want to put chili powder in Bellamy’s toothpaste should have been your first clue.”

“I’m not _in love_ with her,” Lexa pouts.

(She files the spicy toothpaste idea away for later, however. It's a good one.)

“Whatever you say. You have my full blessing to go kiss her again, by the way.”

“Good. I will.”

“Good. Go.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

Lexa toys with the side of her thumbnail. “Anya?”

“Yeah, Squirt?”

“If I came out…publically…”

“I suspect America could handle it. There’s plenty of recent precedence, Lincoln in particular, and I’ve asked advice—discreetly, obviously—from a few of the top political consultants. You’ve never lied, much less under oath, so there wouldn’t be any legal ramifications. The marriage might be tricky to explain unless you decided to come out as bi or just queer, but I’m sure you and your team could come up with something to satisfy everyone.”

Lexa nods. Her eyes widen, then. “Is that what your last-minute conference call was about yesterday?”

“Oh, I’m sorry—did you believe your crush to be subtle, Commander Hearteyes?”

Lexa Woods is _really_ going to have to invest in a good pair of sunglasses.

“I’m going.” Lexa pauses as she’s almost out the door and turns back to her sister.

“ _Bellamy_?”

Anya laughs. “Yep.”

“But he’s so…”

“In his defense, he’s not usually this irritating. Weird big-brother complex mixed with the poor dope nursing a celebrity-crush on Lincoln for half his life _is_ an awfully unattractive look on him.”

Lexa blinks. “What.”

“You know those fantasy celebrity fuck lists everyone has? Lincoln’s at the top of Bellamy’s list. I totally forgot he’d be here for Christmas. Awesome, huh?”

“This…I…I’m just so happy right now.”

“Call it my Christmas present to you. Since I didn’t buy you one.”

“That’s all I want anyway,” Lexa pants out, unable to stop laughing. Oh, Blarkity Boompingbutt. No wonder she’s felt a slight cold shoulder from him. He’s bound for even more hurt this holiday season and she can’t _wait_. “Octavia…”

“We’ll need cameras for when they finally slip up,” Anya agrees, rubbing her hands together and probably figuring out how to live-stream her boyfriend’s reaction to the largest possible audience when he learns about his sister and Lincoln. “But in all seriousness, Lex, go get your girl. You deserve all the happiness in the world.”

With a half-delirious nod, Lexa stands and makes it exactly two steps away before she turns around and launches herself into her sister’s lap for a hug.

“You deserve every happiness, too,” Lexa whispers.

“I know I do. Now get off me.”

“I’m really proud of you. Of everything you do. And whatever you need for your bisexual awareness campaigns, I’m there for you.”

“Shut up,” Anya complains but then she strokes Lexa’s hair back and pulls her face directly in front of her, assessing. “Thanks. I’m proud of you, too, Lexa-Loo. Now wipe off those tear tracks and get the fuck out of here.”

Sniffing, Lexa swipes at her cheeks with the tips of her fingers and Anya goes over them again with far less shaky hands before pushing her to the floor. The President gets to her feet with as much dignity as she can manage in too-large patriotic flannel pajamas that refuse to stay up on her hips and makes to leave, pausing to look back when she’s almost at the door.

“Bellamy? Really?”

“Fuck off,” Anya laughs and shoos her away.

\--

The hallway is silent other than the crackle of radio static as President Woods pushes open the door to the Sun Room, her entire contingent of Secret Service agents seeming to hold their breath. The President walks with a straight back, head held high, and she takes step after step, slowly and surely and with what feels like more ceremony than a coronation march, all eyes on her steady gait and thumping heart.

All is quiet as she descends the stairs.

All is quiet as she opens the door to the second floor and hesitates, looking to the right and then the left for a long moment. Right to the safety of her bedroom. Left to the State Bedrooms.

Lexa turns left and the silence turns electric, a hum of anticipation ricocheting down the line of Secret Service members. Every agent raises their hand to their forehead in salute as she passes and Lexa picks up her pace.

The door to the suite is wide open. The door to the Lincoln Room is open.

Lexa stops at the door and leans against it, hoping she looks casual and not like the doorframe is holding her upright.

“As it turns out, I didn’t have to challenge Anya to a duel after all.”

Clarke turns from the vanity table and the beam on her face is so bright Lexa almost wants to shield her eyes.

“That’s lucky,” she drawls, sauntering closer. “Anya’s scary.”

“You’ve never seen me fight,” Lexa pretends to sulk but it’s hard when the brightest star in the sky is coming closer and closer.

“Yes I have. The whole world has. But while both your campaigns were squeaky clean, I have a feeling Anya fights dirty.”

“I can be dirty.”

Clarke cocks her head and takes another step forward. “Can you?”

Lexa gulps. “If that’s what you want.” She’s sweating and it can’t be attractive. “But Clarke, you need to know what you’re getting into, there’s the President roles and the time and the press and then four years from now that’s all gone and—”

“I just want you,” Clarke interrupts her. She slays the remaining distance between them and cradles Lexa’s cheek, lips so close the empty space between them hurts. “Just you.”

Clarke waits, eyes soft and steady.

Lexa Woods kisses the pretty girl like there’s no tomorrow and the world keeps on spinning.

Countries don’t fall, bombs don’t drop—there’s no nuclear apocalypse at all—and the only weakness it causes remains confined to the President’s knees. 

\--

All six Secret Service agents hum ‘Hail to the Chief’ as the President and Clarke venture into the main residential hallway long after the sun has risen on Christmas morning, hand in hand, and as it turns out, Lexa’s had her own theme music all along.

They’re directed over to the West Wing to join the rest of the guests, where Anya has obviously commandeered Lexa’s seat in the Oval Office, feet on the iconic desk and everything.

(Bellicose Barnac— _Bellamy_ is sitting on the desk to her side, legs gracefully crossed in front of him, giggling at something Anya has said.)

“Do you have any idea how many cameras are running in this room?” Lexa asks, a smile unfettered on her lips.

“I _do_ ,” Anya replies with a conspiratorial eyebrow raise.

Bellamy falls off the desk in his scramble to hide away in the corner and Lexa has to laugh at how uncoordinated some people have the misfortune to be. She does, however, give the man-child a stiff nod when he finally chances eye contact and a little bit of color begins to return to his pallid complexion.

“I’m told this room has the best view of the nighttime snowfall; I thought we should do breakfast in here.”

The landscape of Washington D.C. does indeed spread before them, shimmering and white and still, and Clarke moves a little closer as they gaze out the windows. Lexa swallows any half-hearted retort to her sister about delusions of grandeur in favor of watching the snow’s reflection in her girlfriend’s eyes.

(Who needs the White House rose gardens, anyway?)

A loud gasp breaks them from their reverie and they turn to see Octavia and Lincoln enter, snow-crusted and dripping and grinning like a pair of Disney-drawn loons.

“Oh thank _god,_ ” Lincoln exclaims, relief dripping from his voice as he looks between the two couples. He collapses on the couch, dragging Octavia along with him and settling her in his lap. “Are all the secrets finally out?  I’m exhausted trying to keep up with all these secret-relationships and secret-not-relationships.”

He plants a long kiss on Octavia and Bellamy looks like he’s about to faint again.

Octavia punches her boyfriend square in the shoulder. “Obviously not _all_ the secrets, Linc.” 

Lincoln winces and rubs the spot. “Sorry. But we can tell them now, eh?”

“O?” Bellamy whimpers.

Octavia rolls her eyes at her brother and turns to the rest of the room with an even bigger grin than before, left hand extended in front of her. “We’re engaged!”

The room explodes into squeals and congratulations. Lexa tackles her ex-husband into a hair-ruffling hug while Clarke oohs and awws over the massive diamond on Octavia’s finger.

(Anya half-heartedly tries to revive her slumped-over boyfriend before joining in on the group hug.)

(Bellamy’s fine. Low blood sugar, he insists later.)

\--

Lincoln de Bois met his fiancé exactly a year ago in this very same room, the U.S. President’s Chief of Staff tripping over an errant sheet of wrapping paper and landing right in the Prime Minister of Canada’s arms as he’d waited for his best friend (and technical ex-wife, he enjoys teasing the President) to emerge on Christmas morning.

Lincoln had—of course—insisted on carrying Octavia down a floor to find someone to check her ankle for a fracture and she’d—of course—decided halfway down that the side hallway was the ideal place to kiss him with those pretty lips. Causing a very brief and luckily entirely-suppressed international incident wherein a world leader and a White House Aide couldn’t be located for three long hours.

(Three very short hours, for a certain two individuals groping each other in a back passageway.)

(Lincoln is always quick to clarify that it was tasteful and respectful groping.)

(Octavia is always quick to snort in response.)

Lincoln de Bois met Octavia Blake only a year ago but already he can’t—doesn’t want to—imagine his life before that day.

Which is why he understands that look in Lexa’s eyes as she watches her new girlfriend wildly gesticulate with her hands (and a good part of her whole body) during some anecdote. That feeling of wonder and just a little bit of disbelief. That suspicion that the woman they’re resting their gaze upon is either a hallucination or the grand theory of the universe but nothing else in between.

The Oval Office fireplace is roaring away but Lincoln suspects the feeling of warmth pervading the room this morning isn’t entirely physical in origin.

Bellamy has been manhandled into the corner of the sofa and, with enough force to cause a slight wheeze to escape her—slightly odd, Lincoln has to admit—boyfriend, Anya has plopped herself down perpendicular on his legs, allowing his arm to drape along her waist with only a slight scowl that soon dissolves into what might almost be a contented half-smile that lingers still. Not that anyone in the room would dare point that out to her.

Lexa and Clarke are squished together onto one of the upholstered armchairs, three sets of fingers continually seeking greater and greater entanglement while the fourth set attempts the same in long blonde hair under the weak guise of a one-handed braid.

Hushed conversations peter away, quiet falling across the three couples for a moment, and Lincoln remembers the phrase his French grandmother had always used in such a pause. _Un ange passe—_ an angel is flying overhead. Except that everyone's snuggled up to their own herald angel this morning and that’s an even better reason for this moment of holy silence.

Lincoln wraps his arm tighter around his new fiancé and dips his lips to the crown of her head.

All is calm and all is bright.

“Hey, Bell—remember that massive crush you had on Lincoln a few years ago?” Octavia stabs the holy silence with a smirk. “Do you still have the full-size cut-out of him somewhere? I’m requisitioning it.”

“Octavia!” Bellamy squawks while his girlfriend begins laughing uncontrollably.

“It’s still in his closet,” Anya informs the group when she has control of her lungs again. “Right next to one of Indra.”

“The _Vice-President_?” Octavia cackles, clearly thrilled beyond measure.

“Not to mention a super-creepy one of a young Al Gore.”

“I like history, _okay_?” Bellamy bites out, his cheeks red and blotchy. “I collect them for the eventual class I’d like to teach. One day.”

Lincoln is about to commend the man on pursuing his dreams when Octavia waves what her brother probably considers a brave proclamation aside. “Please. It’s the pose of Lincoln on a beach vacation in his swim trunks. Besides, what the hell do modern North American political figures have to do with your lifelong passion for Ancient Rome?”

“History of governmental structure,” Bellamy grumbles but he knows he has no chance of convincing the room anymore. Not with the way Octavia is crowing in triumph and the President of the United States is having to hide her grin in her girlfriend’s neck.

Lincoln clears his throat and tries to change the subject.

“Oh, Clarke—Wells Jaha emailed me a few days ago about your latest venture. I didn’t realize you two were working together again.”

“Oh, yeah,” Clarke says enthusiastically, attempting to sit forward a little but settling back with a soft little smile when Lexa appears to have difficulty detangling fingers from her hair. “It’s a great initiative. You should look into the changes he’s pushed forward for orphan and refugee reform in Uganda. It’s unbelievable. I’m excited to be part of his latest ones in Syria.”

Lexa looks like she’s just dry-orgasmed right there on the armchair, Lincoln notes with amusement. It’s been long enough; it’s entirely possible. Good for her.

Bellamy, meanwhile, looks like he’s about to dry-heave.

“I dated Wells Jaha,” he whispers.

Lincoln smiles kindly, glad to finally find some common ground with his fiancé’s odd-duck brother. “Oh yeah? Me, too. In law school. He’s a great guy.”

“Me, too!” Clarke adds brightly. “Well, sort of. We pretended to date in our first year of college while he was dating this weird secret upperclassman. Luckily he came out to his family after they broke up a few months later. On the other hand, it was the least drama-filled relationship I’ve even been in, so there’s that.”

Silence descends but it’s not the peaceful kind this time.

Clarke glances over at Bellamy and her eyes widen.

Lincoln clears his throat, remembering Wells’ description of his first boyfriend.

Bellamy crosses his arms and scowls.

Octavia looks disgusted at the sheer number of sexual partners that connect her brother and herself.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Anya coos in what might be her most soothing voice—which isn’t saying much—and patting Bellamy’s back. “Everyone’s freaked out the first few times they have sex. It’s normal. I’m sure it happens to everyone with a penis at least once or twice.”

Bellamy’s eyes widen and then he closes them for a good long while.

Lexa has to excuse herself for a few minutes.

(They can hear her laughter all the way down the West Wing corridor.)

\--

Raven Reyes may hold three PhDs, run the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, be a former CIA agent, and possess all the necessarily skills and supplies to build any type of explosive device, but when she receives a phone call from the White House at 8am on Christmas Day, she sweats a little.

(She’s almost 90% certain she’d cancelled that joke test missile from the ISS.)

Raven frowns into her phone once the speaker finishes talking. “Let me get this straight. Four people who have seen my gorgeous naked ass are all sitting in the Oval Office alongside the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada eating cinnamon buns and you want _me_ there, too?”

Raven Reyes shrugs, barely glancing at the formerly lonely and now very, very naked Norwegian model unstirring in her bed.

“Send a car.”

She pauses, then. “Wait. Clarke, your mom’s not there, is she? Good. No reason. None at all.”

(Many, _many_ reasons.)

\--

An hour later, Lexa Woods is cuddled up comfy cozy by the fireplace, her cheeks warm and rosy. She’s surrounded by friends and family and drinking warm egg nog and it’s Christmas morning and there are happy feelings all around and oh _god_ is her girlfriend beautiful dressed in Lexa’s clothes.

(Even if they’ve only exchanged flannel pajamas this morning so they have their correct sizes. It still counts.)

Clarke laughs at something Raven says and Lexa can’t help but taste that smile, heedless of the chuckles that go up around the room when she does so.

“Case in point,” the head of NASA drawls and Lexa lifts her droopy eyelids and tries to figure out what they’d been talking about.

She fails.

(So. Beautiful.)

“Where’s the paper? I’m going to need to draw up a Venn diagram to understand the sheer level of friendcest going on in this room,” Raven decides, sauntering over to the Presidential desk and rifling through the drawers like she owns the place.

Lexa can see why she and Anya might not have survived long-term.

(On behalf of the entire Earth, she issues a silent thank you.)

Raven climbs up to sit cross-legged on the historical Presidential desk and licks the tip of the pen she procures out of her pocket. She frowns and very carefully screws the top back on before placing it gently back and locating another pen. One that apparently tastes right.

Lexa glances over at the Secret Service agents, who are watching with an equal amount of trepidation.

“Let’s see. Clarke and I are indirectly linked through her scumball ex-husband but also to each other—both before and after Finn,” she murmurs, tossing a wink in Clarke’s direction. Clarke shoots her back a tongue-tipped grin and then kisses the pout right off the President of the United States’ lips.

“And O, you haven’t slept with Anya, right?”

“Not yet.”

“Got it. I’ll place you nearby on the chart, just in case that changes.”

Anya and Octavia high-five across the couch.

Lincoln and Bellamy find themselves frowning in unison; Bellamy’s lessens when he notices and he blushes furiously.

“God, Bellamy, are you sure you haven’t slept with Lincoln? It’s really hard to get you both on there without overlap.”

Bellamy’s scowl returns in full fury.

“Especially since I can’t get you too close to Clarke,” Raven continues, mostly to herself. “Ew.”

Clarke nods with a grimace. Bellamy looks insulted.

“And Lexa…um.” Raven looks over at Clarke, who gives an almost imperceptible head shake that absolutely everyone in the room perceives. “Okay, Lexa hasn’t slept with anyone.”

Lexa blinks. Well, that never stops hurting to hear.

“Wait! I was married to Lincoln!” she shouts in triumph. Ha! She _is_ part of this incestuous circle!

“Ah, of course—I didn’t add the fake relationships. Anya and Clarke, Clarke and Wells, and Lexa and Lincoln,” Raven annotates her lines as she draws them. “Awesome—you’re on the map, President!”

The President of the United States grins. “Yes!” she fist-bumps the air. And then her girlfriend, who proceeds to kiss her for being so ‘cute’, apparently.

 _Please._ Lexa Woods, Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces is anything but cute. Commanding; feared; respected. Awe-commanding.

(The Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces wonders if she can figure out some way to bottle up her girlfriend’s scent and convince the White House laundry service to start using it to wash all her linens.)

(Wait. Did she actually _say_ fake relationship? Lexa Woods side-eyes the former CIA agent.)

“I think you’re forgetting a very important indirect link between me and you with reference to Clarke,” Anya notes as she stands to look over the document that’s going to have to be burned before anyone can leave this room.

For the first time Lexa’s ever seen her, the head of NASA wears a look of panic. Anya receives a swift pinch and a glare.

Clarke looks confused.

Lexa puts it together—she’s on fire today!—and raises her eyebrows at her sister and Raven. _Oh_ , Dr. Crab Apple…

“You know, Madame President, if you want to be more connected on this diagram, I’m always available for—” Raven lilts, changing the subject with commendable alacrity.

“Director Reyes, if you value NASA’s upcoming budget allocations, you won’t finish that sentence.”

“Understood, Commander in Chief,” Raven nods, saluting before turning back to her paper but not without a wink.

Clarke leans closer, her mouth right over Lexa’s ear. “I know a better way to cement your place on that diagram,” she whispers and Lexa only narrowly avoids giving her a bloody nose in the haste to stand up.

She takes her girlfriend’s hand. “If you’ll excuse us,” she calls back, exercising her presidential prerogative and already halfway out the door, Clarke in tow. “Important State business.”

“State business, hmm?” Clarke laughs as Lexa continues to charge down the hallway.

“When you’re Head of State, everything is State business,” Lexa says decidedly, trying to figure out how to kiss and run at the same time.

It does not end well.

“Save it for the bedroom, Chief,” a Secret Service agent advises as they land in a tangle of limbs at the top of the stairs.

“I’m _trying_ ,” the President of the United States grumbles under her breath. The stairs are lucky she’s too busy to designate them a threat to national security right now.  

They make it to Lexa’s bedroom relatively unscathed and she almost imagines the sound of an electronic click as the door shuts and Clarke is pressed to its back.

“Am I finally going to find out if you’re a bottom or a top?” Clarke teases as Lexa buries her face in a warm neck and plants open-mouthed kisses everywhere these fucking over-fabricated pajamas allow. 

“I’m not a bottom,” Lexa insists, sniffing deeply at the rose-scented juncture of Clarke’s neck and shoulders before grappling for a lip between hers. “I’m the _Commander._ In Chief.”

Clarke smiles into the kiss and then swiftly reverses their positions, trapping Lexa between a steel-plated door and her warm body. Lexa whimpers and tilts her neck to allow more skin to appear for those perfect lips.

“You sure, babe?”

“Can we talk about something else?” Lexa pleads, her knees about to collapse yet again as Clarke rises up and tugs at her lower lip with her teeth.

“We don’t have to talk at all." Clarke peels her hands off Lexa’s waist long enough to clap twice, loud and over their heads. The lights flicker off. Lexa’s knees finally give up the ghost.

She spends a lot of time on her knees over the next few days, actually.

(Lexa Woods is _definitely_ a bottom. A service top at the most.)

(The President of the United States _definitely_ cries during sex with her pretty girlfriend. And after sex with her pretty girlfriend. And for a long time afterward whenever she thinks about her pretty girlfriend and her confirmed-skilled surgeon’s hands.)

\--

Octavia Blake barely breaks a sweat doing what she does best—outside the bedroom, anyway—after the President and her girlfriend are finally freed from the freak security lockdown in the Presidential Bedroom suite later that evening. The President continues pretending they’d noticed their eight-hour ordeal while conferring with her Chief Aide, and Octavia continues pretending she and Anya haven’t had a plan in place for this exact scenario for _days_.    

(Although she does squeal with joy. No shame in admitting happy feelings.)

(Lincoln squeals, too.)

(Octavia fucking adores that idiotic Canuck.)

Debbi the stand-in NBC journalist receives her career-changing phone call just as she’s about to call her cats to the formal dining for their Christmas ahi-tuna dinner served in crystal goblets. In return for destroying all camera and video footage of her recent visit to the White House, she is promised an exclusive interview with the President early in the New Year, one that will most certainly make front page headlines.  Even Mr. Whiskerson gets a sip of champagne after the call is ended.

And then Octavia Blake does what she actually does best, because her fiancé’s only in town for a few more days and _holy shit_ his abdominal muscles and his kind, kind heart.

\--

Lexa Griffin-Woods goes down in history as the first female President of the United States.

She’s the first to be elected with a landslide thirty-point majority in the popular polls and the first to obtain a 90% or higher approval rating every month of her eight years in office. Her five Nobel Prizes sit above her hearth with pride. By the time she hands the White House keys back to Michelle in 2025, the American economy has never been stronger, and for the first time, her country couldn’t possibly score higher on international league tables for education, gender equality, happiness, quality of life, longevity, GDP, scientific research, environmental protection, and human rights.

She’s also the first openly homosexual President of the United States.

The first President to marry her First Lady while in office.  
The first President to change their name while in office.  
The first President to be pregnant in the White House, even if it's never officially confirmed and she only earns that particular accolade by a couple of days.

President Lexa Griffin-Woods’ legacy is peace on earth and goodwill to _all_ mankind.

(She goes down in history as the first.)

(She isn't the last.)

_For lo! the days are hastening on,_  
_by prophet seen of old,_  
_when with the ever-circling years_  
_shall come the time foretold_  
_when peace shall over all the earth_  
_its ancient splendors fling,_  
_and the whole world send back the song_  
_which now the angels sing_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You won't be surprised to hear I had to make my own [Venn diagram](https://68.media.tumblr.com/7929989b9f6e2806161364743b975f35/tumblr_ojjeumiTLI1v0be1po1_500.jpg) to figure out what was going on :-)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm [@steklir](http://steklir.tumblr.com) over on tumblr if you want to get in contact.
> 
> One-shot follow up [here](https://steklir.tumblr.com/post/158648324943/from-commander-in-chief-gabby-blabby-abby).


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